Cavs vs. Warriors 2017: NBA Finals Game 5 live updates, highlights, and more

There’s a weird stigma that envelopes finishing second. Logically, it should be celebrated — it’s just one behind the best and ahead of everything else. If sports were an Excel spreadsheet, then second best for a 30-team league should only be 1/30th worse than finishing first.

But we, dumb humans, who can’t even agree on what color some dress really was, don’t work like that. Some can bear it more than others, but admit it: everyone wants to be at the top.

Brace yourselves, folks, because we have an important basketball announcement.

*drumroll*

The NBA just had its most watched Finals game since 1998. As the Warriors beat the Cavaliers in Game 5 on Monday, the game registered a 16.0 rating and became the second-most streamed game of all time.

The last time the league saw a rating that high was Game 6 in the 1998 NBA Finals, when Michael Jordan and the Bulls won their sixth championship. That game clocked in with a 22.3 rating. Since then, the NBA has seen several Game 7s record between 15.3 and 15.8, but they have fallen short of the 16.0 mark that was reached by Game 5.

The Warriors didn’t become the first team to finish the postseason undefeated, but they did get to return home and win their second championship at Oracle Arena. Of course they were headed out to party afterwards. Please enjoy these videos and photos of them doing just that at Harlot night club in San Francisco, where Draymond Green loudly hollered they were headed.

TMZ reported that the Warriors blew at least $150,000 on the celebration. Here’s what a $150,000 party looks like.

IT’S OVER! IT’S FINALLY OVER!

Not just the NBA Finals, which ended in a Warriors win last night, but the thing that was keeping Finals MVP Kevin Durant from being there in the first place: Lil B’s curse.

The Warriors winning their second NBA championship in three years might not ignite the imagination like the Cubs breaking the streak, but it was a huge moment for Kevin Durant. The NBA Finals MVP finally got the title he’d been chasing, and the internet reacted to another title coming to the Bay Area.

OAKLAND — It was early in the game and things weren’t coming easy for the Warriors. The flow was more in the Cavaliers’ favor, the long-range shots weren’t falling, and Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant were on the bench with early foul trouble.

That’s when Stephen Curry went to work. He attacked the basket and lived at the free throw line. Those were tough, necessary points and Curry was more than capable of delivering them. He finished the game with 34 points, 10 assists, and six rebounds, and on any other night his redemptive story would have been the focus. On this one, Curry was merely part of the ensemble.

Everyone thought Kevin Durant was gleefully chugging along with the Warriors during their celebration, but a new angle reveals he was fake chugging all along.

Everyone has different tastes and that’s OK. You don’t NEED to be a beer guy just to fit in when you prefer a dry rosé. There’s no need to make yourself uncomfortable by staying in a situation that feels awkward when you could easily just spit out what they’re trying to make you swallow and move west to win a championship and ...

LeBron James immediately showed leadership while making his way to the locker room after the Cavaliers had just lost to the Warriors in Game 5.

James grabbed Kyrie Irving, gave him a hug, and told him, “We’ll be back.”

The Golden State Warriors’ 2017 championship parade is set to begin at 10 a.m. local time in the Bay Area on Thursday. It’ll continue the party that began at Oracle Arena on Monday with Golden State’s 129-120 victory over Cleveland in Game 5.

The Warriors secured their second championship in three seasons by finishing the playoffs with an incredible 16-1 record. With the addition of Kevin Durant to the fold, they proved to be too much for every team in the league, including the LeBron James-led Cavs.

There’s nothing more devastating in sports than losing a championship, but the Cavaliers showed total class after losing to the Warriors.

These teams didn’t necessarily like each other, and there were plenty of times they pushed and shoved — but at the end of the day game respected game above all else. LeBron James was front-and-center making sure he congratulated every member of the Warriors, especially Kevin Durant who he has been close with.

David West and Tristan Thompson went at each other after West rebounded a Kyrie Irving missed a layup in the second quarter of Game 5 in the NBA Finals. After West snatched the rebound, Irving went directly back at him trying to take the ball back and that’s when West snapped. Thompson got involved directly after, and he and West went face-to-face until they were slapped with technicals and pulled aside by teammates and referees.

It got THIS real.

LeBron James just unleashed the mother of all poster dunks over Kevin Durant as the Cleveland Cavaliers attempt to extend their postseason in the second quarter of a must-win Game 5.

James caught the ball in transition off a pass from Deron Williams and uncorked a devastating two-handed flush over Durant. It was a liberating moment for LeBron, whose standing as The King was called into question by KD’s remarkably efficient first three games of the NBA FInals.

LeBron James must have complicated feelings towards the Golden State Warriors. It’s James who benefited from superteams like them in Miami and now with the Cavaliers, and it’s James who became the most prominent superstar still in his prime to leave a team voluntarily in free agency. Both of those things contribute to the loaded Warriors being in a position to close out Cleveland in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday night.

On Sunday, James took a question on the subject of Kevin Durant joining the Warriors from TNT and NBA.com’s David Aldridge. James answered it rather ominously, explaining why he wouldn’t give a full answer right now, but rather at “some point in his career.” Here’s the video.