OAKLAND, Calif. — In those final, frantic seconds of regulation that must have felt like the interminable eight-day wait for the start of the N.B.A. finals, Andre Iguodala was alone against the best basketball player on the planet.
All around Oracle Arena, fans wore yellow T-shirts that displayed the Golden State Warriors’ season-long slogan, “Strength in Numbers.” But now, out on the left wing, in a tense and deadlocked Game 1, Iguodala was on his own against the one-man wrecking crew named LeBron James.
The score was 98-98. The stakes already seemed high for the Warriors, defending a home-court advantage they had worked all season to earn against James and his Cleveland Cavaliers.