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SteemSports presents: Cleveland Cavaliers vs Antonio Spurs

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Game Preview

This is the match between the main contenders to win this year's NBA. Both teams are showing some great basketball this year, winning at least 72 percent of their games. Also, we will be able to witness 3 NBA All-Star starters on the field, so that is the reason enough to check this game! Cleveland Cavaliers are projected to play in the NBA finals by almost every expert. They will probably face Golden State Warriors or San Antonio Spurs in it. So this game might be a great practice before the finals. I am sure that both teams will play with full energy and will want to show what are they capable of. This might not be the highest scoring game, but any NBA fan will agree with me that it is one of the most exciting match-ups in a whole NBA.

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Cleveland Cavaliers

Cavaliers are not playing their best basketball at this very moment. Kevin Love is also out with injury. By saying not playing the best, I mean playing terribly.

Cavs lost to Golden State Warriors by 35 points. They have also been blown by Blazers and Jazz. Only 2 wins in the last 5 games is not what the Cavalier fans are used to seeing. That will have to change soon. Good thing is that the Cavaliers 30-12 record is still the best in the Eastern Conference and they have this kind of luxury to play badly during some stages of the regular season.

Also, we can justify this kind of play because Cavaliers are now paying a lot of attention on getting Kyle Korver on board. The Coach is experimenting a little bit more and he knows that some losses during the regular season is better than having a team which is not ready for the most important games. What can I say? It looks like Kyle Korver is feeling more comfortable with every game wearing the Cavs jersey. He shoots 6-8 three pointers per game and he usually makes at least half of them. That is fantastic news forn the Cavs fans. If Kyle will be able to shoot at least 50 percent beyond the arc, this team will look even better than last year.

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LeBron James is a prodigy of basketball

How good is LeBron James? Well, he will play in his 13th NBA All-Star game this year. He is a starter no doubt. Apart from James, Durant will be playing in his 8th game and no other guys have played in more than 4 games. That only shows how consistent and dominant James is. While Anthony, Wade, or Bosh are already seeing their curve going down, it looks like James is not subordinate to time.

LeBron James is averaging 25.5 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists per game which is stunning. Of course, everyone is talking about Westbrook's and Harden's season, but James does not mind. He knows that it is not important what are people talking about in the middle of the season. It is only important what they say after the season. So I guarantee you that James could easily produce better numbers than he has now, but he simply does not see any reason for it.

Also, LeBron James is Cleveland Cavaliers spiritual guide. If you watch him speaking before or after the game, you can see that guys believe him and are ready to follow him. It is impossible to measure the benefit of it by numbers, but any sports fan will know that team spirit is one of the key factors to the victories.

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San Antonio Spurs

Have you ever heard anyone talking about the Spurs? Have you seen the Spurs being covered on a NBA website or a Facebook page? Have you seen a lot of talks about Kawi Leonard lately? Probably not.

The San Antonio Spurs team is the team of silent warriors. All the players are firstly focused on the team's results and nobody is trying to pump their stats or become a superhero. What is the result? Well, Spurs franchise is probably the most successful in the whole NBA during the last 16 years.

Also, I have to pay my respect to Greg Popovich as one of the greatest coaches ever to coach in the NBA. He is simply brilliant and most importantly, players never doubt his authority. You will never see any player from Spurs being unhappy for being substituted. You will also never see any player thinking that he is more important than the coach. That is the strength of this Spurs team.

So, without any showing off and fighting for attention, Spurs team is comfortably sitting in the second place in the Western Conference with over 75 percent of won games.

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Not your typical All-Star - Kawi Leonard

Kawi Leonard has made it to his second NBA-All star game this year. He will be in the Western Conference starting lineup. That is impressive. He is playing perfect basketball on both ends of the floor and there is no other player in the league who deserves this kind of recognition more than Kawi does.

Kawi Leonard is super humble and focuses only on the game. He is not that much into creating the show or doing interviews. He is not eccentric at all. That is why he is so perfect to be the leader in the San Antonio team. It looks like Kawi Leonard came to Spurs right on time to replace Tim Duncan and continue with his legacy.

Also, Kawi is such a perfect defender that most of the teams are sacrificing one man in the offense so he would just sit in the corner and lure Kawi to himself, while the team plays 4 vs 4. When something that radical has to be made just to avoid Kawi's defense, you know that the man is a prodigy.

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Prediction

Oh my, this is a hard call. I think that the game will be defensive with a lot of hard physical contact. I think that bookies will see Cavaliers as the favorites to win, but taking all the factors into account, I think that Spurs should be able to get this away victory. 107-99 to Spurs

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Presenter: @cryptoiskey

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Writer: @writingamigo

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Game Starts:

January 21, 8:30PM/5:30PM ETPT

January 22, 1:30AM UTC