LeBron James powered the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 93-89 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Sunday in an electrifying Game Seven to complete an improbable comeback unlike any seen before and capture their first NBA championship.
 With the win over the top-seeded Warriors, who celebrated a championship on Cleveland’s home court last year, the Cavaliers became the first team to rally from a 3-1 series deficit in the best-of-seven NBA Finals and win the title.
 “I’ve had the goal for two years since I came back to bring a championship to the city,” said an emotional James, who returned to the Cavaliers in 2014 after a four-year stint with Miami that included a pair of NBA championships.
 “I gave it everything that I had. I poured my heart, my blood, my sweat and my tears into this game.”
 When the final buzzer sounded to end what was the closest game of the Finals, an emotional James dropped to the floor before he was mobbed by his teammates.
 James led Cleveland in the championship-clinching win with a triple-double as he recorded 27 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists en route to being named the Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals for a third time.
 The win ends decades of heartbreak for the city of Cleveland, which had not won a professional sports championship since the 1964 Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. For James, the win not only marks his third NBA title, but it will go down as the single greatest achievement of his storied career as it fulfils his promise to deliver a title to his home state of Ohio.
 “I came back for a reason. I came back to bring a championship to our city,” said James, who was in tears as he wrapped his arms around the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy.
 “I knew what I was capable of doing. I knew what I learned in the last couple years that I was gone, and I knew I had the right ingredients and the right blueprint to help this franchise get back to a place that we’ve never been.”
 The back-and-forth game lived up to its billing as it was tight throughout and included 20 lead changes while no team was able to pull ahead by more than eight points.
 Facing elimination in each of their previous two games, James carried the Cavs back from the brink as they became only the third team to force a Game Seven after falling behind 3-1 in the championship round.
 For the Warriors, who had a record 73 wins during the 82-game regular season, Sunday’s defeat marked the first time since November 2013 that they have lost three consecutive games.
 “It wasn’t easy what we accomplished, and it’s not an easy pill to swallow what we didn’t accomplish,” said two-time league MVP Stephen Curry, who had 17 points in the loss. “So got to just take the good with the bad.”  After a record smashing regular season the Warriors could not cap off the campaign with a second successive title, unable to deliver the knockout punch after going up 3-1 in the best-of-season series.
 The Warriors were ultimately undone in the series by the disappearance of their high-octane offense, a suspension to defensive stalwart Draymond Green, a season-ending injury to rim-protecting center Andrew Bogut and defensive specialist Andre Iguodala dealing with a balky back.
 “Just an incredible run that obviously didn’t end the way we wanted it to,” said Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. “It’s been an incredible two-year run. We’re disappointed that it didn’t go our way at the end, but that’s life.”
 When the Warriors raced out to a 3-1 series lead the Cavs were left for dead by many impartial observers who expected the Golden State to run away with the series.
 But with their backs against the wall, a Cavaliers team that once seem overmatched never gave up in their quest for a maiden NBA title.
 “I knew what we were capable of, even being down 3-1 versus the greatest regular season team ever,” said James.

Cleveland Cavaliers Factbox
* NBA titles: One (2016)
 * The franchise joined the National Basketball Association in 1970 as an expansion team along with the Buffalo Braves and Portland Trail Blazers.
 * The NBA instituted what is commonly known as the “Stepien Rule,” due to Ted Stepien’s propensity for trading away high draft picks during a disastrous three-year tenure as owner of the Cavaliers in the early 1980s.
 * Cavaliers are the team that were on the wrong end of “The Shot,” the name of a wildly famous series-winning basket hit by Michael Jordan in the 1989 Eastern Conference quarter-finals that is one of the most replayed NBA plays in history.
 * Franchise had a 26-game losing streak during the 2010-11 NBA season that tied the record for longest losing streak in major North American professional sports.
 * The team used the first pick in the 2003 NBA Draft to select LeBron James, who averaged 20.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game in his debut campaign and was named the league’s Rookie of the Year.
 * Cleveland were the first team to draft a Canadian player with the first overall draft pick when they selected Anthony Bennett in 2013.
 * James eventually led the Cavaliers to five consecutive playoff berths, including a trip to the NBA Finals in 2007, but he infamously left Cleveland as a free agent in 2010 to sign with the Miami Heat, where he went on to win two championships.
 * James rejoined the Cavaliers in 2014 as a much tougher and more determined competitor than the player who had left in 2010 and brought the team back to relevance after four consecutive losing seasons.
 * 2015-16 regular season record: 57-25
 * Road to the 2016 NBA title: Won Central Division; Beat Detroit 4-0 in Eastern Conference quarter-finals; Beat Atlanta 4-0 in conference semi-finals; Beat Toronto 4-2 in conference final; Beat Golden State 4-3 in NBA Finals.