CLEVELAND-- The Golden State Warriors bounced back from an embarrassing road loss two days ago to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 108-97 on Friday and move one win away from a second consecutive NBA championship.
The win was a devastating blow to LeBron James's Cavaliers, who lost their first home game of the postseason and now trail the best-of-seven NBA Finals 3-1 with Game Five scheduled for Monday in Oakland.
Stephen Curry powered Golden State, who lost by 30 points on Wednesday, by scoring a game-high 38 while Kyrie Irving led the Cavaliers with 34 points. James had 25 points.
Of the 32 teams that have faced a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals none have ever come back to win the championship.
The Warriors, who fell behind by as many as 20 points after a miserable start to Game Three, responded with a much stronger effort to start this one as each team traded shots for much of the first two quarters.
The tightly-contested first half, easily the most intense 24 minutes of the series so far, included 15 lead changes, which was more than the previous three games combined.
Cleveland looked ready to pull away to start the second half when they extended their lead to eight and whipped the home crowd into a lather but Golden State would not fold.
The Warriors quickly took over in the final quarter when they shored up their defense and kicked their offense into a higher gear.
With just under six minutes to play Harrison Barnes gave the Warriors their largest lead of the night up to that point when he drained a three-pointer for a 93-84 lead.
It marked a 17-point turnaround from the third quarter when Cleveland, who went without a field goal for a six-minute stretch of the fourth, led by eight points.
