No NBA team had ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a championship. The Cleveland Cavaliers have never won a title, either.
And yet somehow, despite being down 3-1 against the greatest regular season team in NBA history, the Cavs walked into Oracle Arena and took down the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. There will come a time for far more nuanced takes regarding this, but for now, let’s take a look at some of the best reactions from the Internet after the Cavaliers made history.
First, let’s just get the Crying Jordans out of the way.
— 🐻+🍯=❤️ (@WinkWestwood) June 20, 2016
Congrats Stephen Curry!!!! #NBAFinals pic.twitter.com/vJL1VJacQu
— Crying Jordan (@CryingJordan) June 20, 2016
As I mentioned a little earlier in the post, this was a huge night for the city of Cleveland. No major sports team from the city has won a championship since 1964, so, understandably, fans were a little confused as to how to react back in Ohio.
This Cavs fan delayed reaction is INCREDIBLE https://t.co/VffmR4PDPk
— KFC (@KFCBarstool) June 20, 2016
Oh, and to add some context to how long ago 1964 was, Harrison Ford was barely into his 20s.
https://twitter.com/mikeryan/status/744722025395200001
There were a few shots at Warriors star Steph Curry. Sure, he’s one of the best basketball players on earth and quite possibly the best shooter to ever live, but he wasn’t immune to criticism. One Twitter user theorizes that the downfall of the Warriors occurred when Curry’s new Under Armour shoes that the internet roasted came out.
https://twitter.com/NaturallyKatz/status/744725260495364096
Even outside of the whole “Steph released cursed dad shoes” thing, there were plenty of jokes lobbed towards the first unanimous MVP in league history.
https://twitter.com/jnsanchez/status/744721374955081728
Take your place amongst the legends, LeBron James. #NBAFinals pic.twitter.com/GyiYVgT699
— theScore (@theScore) June 20, 2016
Curry wasn’t the only member of his family who was the butt of a few jokes. His wife, Ayesha, got picked on after she threw some shade on Twitter during the series.
Ayesha drafting right now… pic.twitter.com/hzGk5PsFmH
— Not Robert Griffin (@Pseudo_RGIII) June 20, 2016
Oh, also, here’s one more Crying Jordan thing. It involves Ayesha Curry, and it’s the best thing on the Internet right now.
https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/744721162266157057
And of course, one dude who was on the receiving end of some jokes was Draymond Green. He had a pretty rough finals – you can make the case that the Cavs don’t come back to win if he doesn’t get suspended for Game 5 – and while he made it a point to seek out LeBron and give him some love after the game, you knew that people were going to make jokes at Dray’s expense.
https://twitter.com/SheilaMikailli/status/744721434283409409
https://twitter.com/dac15_/status/744727624065286144
And there were of course just a bunch of jokes. Nothing says NBA title more than quips about sex and Joker-inspired nihilism.
https://twitter.com/World_Wide_Wob/status/744736424033943552
https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/744736421861171200
Then there was the inevitable David Lee mention.
David Lee is somewhere c-walking.
— Andrew Ungvari (@DrewUnga) June 20, 2016
And, of course, how is Cleveland doing?
https://twitter.com/World_Wide_Wob/status/744736450340618240
Then there were those already looking forward to Cleveland’s White House visit and J.R. Swish meeting the Obama’s.
JR SMITH IS GOING TO MEET OBAMA AT WHITE HOUSE
— Rae Sanni (@raesanni) June 20, 2016
To end, let’s talk about LeBron James. He went back to Cleveland with one goal in mind: to win an NBA championship for his hometown team, the squad that drafted him out of high school. He played out of his mind in these Finals en route to being named the MVP, so of course, the famous LeBron James kid Vine popped up all over the place…
https://twitter.com/scumbag_unit/status/744722382645043201
…and others recalled the teenage phenom from Akron who one day was going to be the best basketball player on earth. More than a decade later, that ended up being the case.
I remember like 14 yrs ago when there was this baby-faced kid on the cover of @sportsillustrated named Lebron James. pic.twitter.com/7nnc69dOE9
— The LeBron James of Pig Feet. (@GeeDee215) June 20, 2016
America’s Commander-In-Chief popped on social media to give LeBron some DAP, too.
What a game and what a series for the @Cavs. Happy to see @KingJames bring it home for Cleveland!
— President Obama (@POTUS44) June 20, 2016
And what have we here? Is someone trolling the preeminent modern dray troll, Skip Bayless? Why yes, yes they are.
And the best part: @KingJames ends @RealSkipBayless career at ESPN that he built by trolling on him by shutting him the F up.
— Rich Eisen (@richeisen) June 20, 2016
That above tweet should even make Warriors fans happy. Schadenfreude is all Skip is good for these days.
We’ll end by going back to the Warriors, namely the fact that people debated whether they were better or worse than the 72-win Chicago Bulls team from 1995-96. According to one of those Bulls, Dennis Rodman, this settled the debate.
Congrats @cavs for winning @NBA title. @warriors u had a great regular season. But the greatest team of all time is the 95-96 @chicagobulls
— Dennis Rodman (@dennisrodman) June 20, 2016
You can still probably continue to argue this notion, but Rodman makes a point: if you value titles, then the Cavs’ win was the nail in that argument’s coffin.