The 2016 NBA Finals, game by game.

Every strip on this page is a real NBA Playoffs strip from the Huezle app, drawn by the app’s own code. More about NBA Playoffs.

How to read the strips

Each strip is one game, read left to right from tip-off to the final buzzer, one band per minute. A band is purple when the away team led at the end of that minute, gold when the home team led, and pale when the score was close or tied. A band reaches full colour at 18 points.

Home and away swap during a series. Golden State had home court, so Games 1, 2, 5 and 7 were in Oakland, where gold means Warriors ahead; Games 3, 4 and 6 were in Cleveland, where gold means Cavaliers ahead.

Games 2–4: Golden State goes 3–1 up

• G2 · GSW 110–77
• G3 · CLE 120–90
• G4 · GSW 108–97

Tip-offFinal Buzzer

• Away Leading
• Tied
• Home Leading

The Warriors had just finished a 73–9 regular season and won the first two games at home. Game 2 was a 33-point win, the gold deepening almost to the last band. Cleveland answered with a 30-point win at home in Game 3, ahead at every minute mark. Game 4 was the hinge: the Cavaliers led by 6 at halftime, but Golden State went ahead for good in the 38th minute and won by 11 to go 3–1 up.

Games 5 and 6: the turn

• G5 · CLE 112–97
• G6 · CLE 115–101

Tip-offFinal Buzzer

• Away Leading
• Tied
• Home Leading

Draymond Green was suspended for Game 5. It was tied at halftime, and Cleveland led from the 25th minute to the end, by 16 in the closing minutes. Game 6 was their second wire-to-wire win of the series: up 20 after the first quarter and by as many as 24.

Game 7: four minutes of nothing

Tip-offFinal Buzzer

• Away Leading
• Tied
• Home Leading

Game 7 is one of the most even strips in the whole collection. Golden State led by 7 at halftime, Cleveland by 7 in the third quarter, and the Warriors by 1 after three. The lead changed hands at least 12 times at minute marks, more than in any other Finals game since 2011. Then the scoring stopped: the game was tied at the end of four straight minutes, until Kyrie Irving’s three-pointer in the final minute.

Cleveland became the first team to win the Finals from 3–1 down, and won the franchise’s first championship. For how this decider compares with the others, see every NBA Finals Game 7; for the rest of LeBron James’s Finals, LeBron James in the Finals.

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