Which movie trilogy is Cavaliers vs. Warriors?
When the 2017 NBA Finals tip off Thursday night history will be made. For the first time in the league’s 71 years of existence, two teams will meet in the NBA Finals for the third consecutive time.
The Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers have been the best in their respective conferences each of the previous three years, in the regular season as well as the playoffs (sorry, Boston). It’s easy to see why, as both have a transcendent talent headlining their franchise. For Cleveland it’s been the sustained brilliance of LeBron James — highly acclaimed since he was 16 and managing to live up to the hype and then some evey year. Meanwhile, the Warriors burst onto the scene with the captivating aerial onslaught of Stephen Curry.
Both teams have taken home a title, splitting their previous meetings in 2015 and 2016. This year’s face-off looks promising. The two main attractions have surrounded themselves with the requisite star power (Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Kevin Love aka a basketball Ocean’s Eleven) to give us good basketball throughout June.
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With the anticipation building to see these two titans battle, imagining what lies in store is all we can do until Game 1. However, instead of telling you why the Warriors or Cavaliers will emerge victorious in round three, let’s spice things up some.
A trilogy has never happened in the NBA Finals, but it has been a pretty standard narrative structure in other art forms. Movies have been delivering trilogies for years (George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise is currently completing a trilogy of trilogies) and with plenty of options to select from why not let them act as the guiding light for the NBA’s first go round?
We’ve seen how acts one and two play out, but what should we expect from act three?
Let’s first do a quick recap of the previous two meetings. In 2015, Curry and the Warriors are the new lovable “IT” team in the league and they defeat James’ Cavs and ruin the homecoming storyline that dominated much of that year. Next season saw Golden State receive some push back as their dominance — a record-setting 73 regular season wins– was a turnoff to some, but Cleveland overcame great odds (a 3-1 deficit) to end the city’s championship drought of 52 years.
With that as the background, a few trilogies share similar story arcs. First, there’s Toy Story. In this scenario, LeBron would be Woody; the once beloved cowboy favorite of Andy who feels pushed to the side when astronaut Buzz Lightyear is purchased for Christmas and becomes Andy’s favorite.
Then in Toy Story 2, Woody’s legacy is redefined when he is kidnapped and placed alongside his fellow Woody’s Roundup companions — Kyrie would be Bullseye, Kevin Love would be Jessie and David Blatt would be The Prospector of course — to be sold off to a museum as a collectible.
Though Toy Story’s plot seems to fall in line with what happened between the Warriors and Cavaliers, Toy Story 2 feels like a stretch.
Next, we move on to Mad Max. Though biker gangs and NBA franchises might not have much in common on the surface, the tie-in here is like the gangs that have taken over this future dystopian Australia, LeBron James and his “superteams” had taken over the NBA in 2015. Steph would be a much more TV-friendly version of police officer Max Rockatansky in this scenario.
That’s about it for forced connections, but the fact that the sequel was titled Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is too much of a coincidence to simply overlook. Golden State are the Warriors, in the second meeting the Cavaliers won on the road, and finally James trolled them by wearing an Ultimate Warrior t-shirt (in blue and yellow) during Cleveland’s championship celebration. Also, the finale is titled Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and that sure sounds like an allusion to Durant leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Warriors and being part of the 2017 series.
Ironic title choices aside though, there isn’t much of a narrative connection between Mel Gibson’s Max and the Cavaliers and Warriors trips to the NBA Finals.
Then there’s Christopher Nolan’s foray into trilogies with his three Batman movies. In Batman Begins rich kid Bruce Wayne seeks to stand for something and leaves Gotham only to come back as a crime-stopping vigilante of the people. During the 2015 NBA finals, rich kid Steph Curry seeks to cement his status as an elite player and wins a championship as a humble superstar of the people.
The Dark Knight is a critically-acclaimed masterpiece that sees the Joker introduced as a character that enjoys employing mass chaos just for the sake of mass chaos. In 2016, James inflicted mass chaos upon the Warriors (averaging 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.6 steals, and 2.3 blocks) in a hard fought, epic seven-game series that is one of the best Finals in recent memory.
Nolan got a bit lazy with The Dark Knight Rises — kind of like how this NBA season felt lazy — and Bane’s rise to power culminating in him breaking Batman’s back feels like Golden State blowing a 3-1 lead and ending the Warriors bid for greatest team of all-time; the mass prison break and resulting riots would then stand for all the fans and talking heads complaints about the quality of play in this year’s postseason. Nolan’s trilogy doesn’t fit as neatly as the ultimate trilogy and the story line we should be expecting from Cavs vs Warriors III.
The series that most relates to what we’ve seen and will see in June is none other than the original Star Wars trilogy.
Steph’s heroism is the closest thing we’re getting to a modern day Luke Skywalker. LeBron’s seemingly never ending prime feels like Darth Vader’s rule over the galaxy — chase-down blocks are James’ “force choke”. Draymond is some kind of wacky combination of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Like Mad Max, the titles also feel tailor made for the Golden State and Cleveland matchups. The Warriors winning in 2015 served as a New Hope for the NBA. Cleveland storming through the East and coming back in 2016 was the Empire Strikes Back and Golden State reclaiming the title (yeah, Warriors in six by the way) this season is the Return of the Jedi.
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If that isn’t convincing enough here’s a movie-by-movie and NBA Finals comparison. Episode IV is the story of Luke Skywalker claiming his rightful spot amongst the Jedi. The 2015 season was when Curry became a contender for best player in the world and took home his first MVP award. Episode V saw the Empire regroup and refortify their Death Star as they were able to get the upper hand on the Rebel Alliance. The 2016 season saw the Cavaliers regroup and refortify (healthy Irving and Love) as they overcame a seemingly insurmountable lead to get the upper hand on the Warriors. Episode VI starts with Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, and others rescuing Han Solo before they take down the Empire and Sith Lord Darth Sidious. So 2017 started with Curry, Green, Thompson, and others recruiting Kevin Durant to the Bay Area in hopes of taking down the Cavaliers and James.