How the Cavaliers blew a 6-point lead in 3 minutes in Game 3

With 3:09 left in Game 3, J.R. Smith drilled his fifth three-pointer. The Cavaliers went up by six points. They wouldn’t score again.

Just like that, the best game played all postseason also turned into an execution blow, as the Warriors swung ahead three games to none against Cleveland. Assuming the Cavaliers don’t complete a second straight, even-more-historic-than-last-year comeback — and they won’t — then the Warriors will be your 2017 champions.

But how? How did a team up six points with all the momentum swinging their way lose a six-point lead with just three minutes remaining? How was Cleveland, who entered the series averaging 120.7 points per 100 possessions, held scoreless while taking eight shots?

Here are the biggest two reasons why.

In a masterful recreation of last year’s Game 5, James and Irving combined for 77 points on Wednesday. They were both dazzling and overpowering against Golden State. It was brilliant offensive basketball ... for 45 minutes.

In those final three minutes, Golden State rallied. They only allowed just a couple good looks — a turnaround jumper to James from 12 feet out of a post-up, and an Irving driving layup that just barely fell off the rim. The other two shots were a forced three-pointer with 26 seconds left by Irving, and a desperate James jumper with seconds left that was blocked.

Two mistakes were made.

Other criticisms of those two players seem shallow after everything else they did. You can say James shouldn’t have passed to Kyle Korver in the corner, but that’s decrying everything that James has ever been about in his career. He may be the all-time leading scorer in postseason history, but James also pushes back against the “scorer” label whenever he’s given a chance. If you can get Korver — a career 43 percent shooter with more than 2,000 career makes — a good look in the corner, then it’s the right basketball play every time. Unfortunately, he missed.

Likewise, Irving did everything he could. After it seemed like he had hit nearly a hundred circus layups in this game, this one just wouldn’t quite fall. He even ended up with the offensive rebound on this possession. Unfortunately, the Cavaliers still couldn’t convert.

But man, if that layup had gone in.

The Warriors’ minutes totals:

The Cavaliers’ minute totals:

Look, if you don’t consider fatigue or minutes played as an excuse, that’s fine. I’m not even offering it up right now as an “excuse.” It’s an explanation. Here’s what happened in Game 3, and here’s why we think it probably happened like it did.

Fatigue isn’t something you can measure, not without biometric data or some other advanced medical technology. But we all know it when we see it, and James even admitted at times he felt exhausted after the game — although he said that was normal if you’re playing to your max.

If you watched those final three minutes — the entire fourth quarter, really — it seems very clear that the Cavaliers were indeed exhausted. It wasn’t just the raw amount of minutes played, but the amount of effort they were exerting from tip off to final buzzer. You saw it from James and Irving, but also Kevin Love, whose 37 minutes were filled with extreme efforts at all times on both ends.

In last year’s Game 7, we saw two exhausted teams battling it out in a vicious, leave-it-all-on-the-court finale. Games like that one are even at the end, because both teams are on the same level of fatigue. In Game 3 on Wednesday, though, one team clearly had the edge. Specifically, Kevin Durant still had the legs to run right up the court and pop this game-winning three in James’ face, while he could only throw up a hand in his face.

All the Cavaliers might have needed was one made shot. Alternately, they could have just seen the Warriors miss one or two more jumpers, and they could have held on. Instead, this cruel world spared no mercy for Cleveland.

This summer, the Cavaliers might never stop thinking about that final 3:07.