For "The Land"

LeBron raises his third Bill Russell Finals MVP trophy in the air after winning Game 7 in Oracle Arena vs Warriors.

By: Lamar "L.A" Smith

Everything changed in nine days. Nine days is the amount of days between Game 4 and Game 7 of the NBA Finals. A team once staring in the face of disappointment instead had a date with basketball immortality.

The Cleveland Cavaliers went through the first two rounds of the NBA Playoffs (8-0) without any adversity. The Conference Finals saw the Cavs drop two consecutive games after winning the first two games of the series, although the Raptors were never a danger to Cleveland's title hopes. Cleveland's focus was pointed to the West.

A historic 73-win team who came back from a (3-1) deficit versus the Oklahoma City Thunder in this year's Western Conference Finals were the real foes of the Cavs. A depleted Cavaliers team fought hard but, loss to the Warriors in six games. This year the Cavs had a chance at revenge.

The team leaves Golden State down (2-0) and everyone believes the Cavaliers could lose in a sweep or could be lucky to win a game versus the Golden State Warriors. Cleveland loses Game 4 and now has to go back to Oracle Arena facing a (3-1) deficit after getting blown out twice. A season on the line and one player's legacy on the line.

Cleveland responded and won Game 5 in Oracle Arena. Some will argue LeBron James subtly lobbied for a Draymond Green flagrant foul in his Game 4 post game comments. Despite Green's suspension the Warriors still had two games to hoist up the team's second consecutive title including a Game 7 in Oakland.

The team looked to be headed towards another disappointing championship run. ESPN debuted a documentary about the Cleveland sports drought titled "Believeland" on May 14th talking about the 52 year championship drought by Cleveland professional sports teams.

"The Fumble", "The Drive", "The Shot" everything bad about Cleveland can be described in a two-word tag starting with the word the apparently. Cleveland has endured a ridiculous amount of agony. "The Drought" would end eventually but, the team which would end "The Drought" was the real question.

Cleveland Browns no thank you, the team has not made the playoffs in over a decade when the team's last reliable quarterback was University of Kentucky product Tim Couch. Cleveland Indians haven't won the Central Division since 2007 and the last time the team went to the World Series in 1997 the Indians became known for "The Inning" and Jose Mesa could not close a possible Game 7 victory. The Indians aided in helping the Marlins obtain the team's first World Series title in the franchise's only fifth year of existence.

Cleveland Cavaliers were stuck as the team with the only real chance of winning a title. This dubious distinction came along thirteen years ago when the Cavs selected a kid from Akron, Ohio approximately 39 miles from the city of Cleveland with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft.

"The Chosen One" and "King James" were the names given to the prodigal son of Northeast Ohio. Fast forward thirteen years later including "The Decision" and "The Return" LeBron James promised the city a title and he delivered.

James brought the Larry O'Brien trophy home the only way he knew how and he did this through sheer will and force. The same dominance he plays with on the basketball court.

The Cavs became only the fourth team in NBA history to comeback from a 2-0 deficit in the Finals. Also the team became the first team to comeback from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals and he accomplished both of these unbelievable tasks with arguably the best three-game stretch of his life.

However, who would be foolish to expect anything else, James only happens to be the all-time leader in points per game in elimination games in the playoffs. He puts up a tremendous fight during elimination situations so one would be wise to knock him out as soon as possible. Golden State didn't knock him out and the Warriors paid for it.

Golden State had a tough task since James has a fighter's chin. He exploded for an efficient 41 points and near triple-double in a Game 5 win. The last game in Cleveland of 2016 he stops a Golden State comeback single-handedly putting up another 41 points including scoring 18 straight points for Cleveland between the end of the third until about the middle of the fourth quarter.

Game 7 on the road against one of the greatest home teams in NBA history and the greatest regular season team in NBA history. Only three teams out of 18 have won Game 7 of the NBA Finals on the road. Adjust the statistic to four out of 19 teams have won Game 7 on the road because this is how LeBron won the first title in franchise history for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Kyrie Irving may have hit the go-ahead shot to bring the title to Cleveland but, the Cavs would not be in that position late without "The Block". Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala are on a two on one fast break vs. J.R. Smith. LeBron chases down and blocks Iguodala's potential go-ahead layup with 1:50 left on a the clock when both teams struggled to score.

James started out 88 ft from the Warriors basket which is nearly the full length of an NBA court and ran the first 60 ft of that distance in 2.67 seconds according to ESPN's Sports Science by John Brenkus. The true wild card is teammate J.R. Smith. Smith's ability to stop the ball slowed Curry and Iguodala down enough for LeBron to make up the extra ground to block the shot. Despite Iguodala hanging in the air before releasing his layup LeBron still had to jump 35 inches to cleanly block the shot.

"The Block" changed the game and put Cleveland in position to win. James also became just the third player in NBA history to have a triple-double in Game 7 of the NBA Finals and now has seven triple-doubles in the Finals behind Magic Johnson's eight.

A historic and improbable run by none other than the prodigal son ended over a half of century of disappointment for sports in Northeast Ohio.

Nine days from the brink of disaster now a new chapter in this book can be written: "The Title". The star none other than "The Chosen One", "The King" and the prodigal son of Northeast Ohio finally brought championship gold to "The Land".