For quite some time now, I have not been good at staying up all night. When I was younger, sure. Not anymore.

Either I fail at it, and wake up several hours after whatever I was waiting for is finished, or I make it through the game or the flight and then sleep badly and get up feeling as if I have just come off a plane that flew overnight from the U.S. to Abu Dhabi or France.

In this case, it was the latter situation. Home-induced jet lag in pursuit of the NBA.

But when we have an interesting NBA Finals, one that could give us as few as four games over a span of 16 days, and along comes Game 2 and it starts an hour earlier …

You have to watch. Even if it means you wake up feeling like you just got off the red-eye from Los Angeles to Paris.

Even if it means watching the Golden State Warriors overrun the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Scary thing about this game, if you saw it and were hoping for a tight and competitive series, came in the final 70 seconds of the third quarter.

The second half began with the Cavaliers down only 67-64, and the game remained close for a bit … and then the Warriors do what they do, and both sides seemed to be sprinting up and down the floor. The Warriors got up 10, at 83-73, when Stephen Curry led LeBron James on a merry/embarrassing chase as he dribbled in, out, around James and back in for a layup.

(The play was run and re-run several times and, yes, it brought to mind the Harlem Globetrotters, with LeBron playing the part of the hapless Washington General.)

The Cavs called timeout and, showing some mettle, pulled within four, at 86-82, and the Warriors called a timeout.

Then the Warriors turned things up to 11 on a scale of 10, doing what they do when the they really bear down and aim to run the opposition into the floor.

Two free throws, a three-point play, an open dunk.

Cavaliers timeout at 93-82.

The Warriors turned it up even more. Neither team was able to score much, but the pace was brutal.

LeBron James went out with just over a minute left in the quarter, at 97-84, and then I saw something I do not recall seeing, in all my viewings of LeBron James.

He reached the bench as if he had just finished a series of 400-meter sprints. The kind that overpower anyone after about four (or three or two) of them.

He seemed almost to collapse in his chair while gasping for breath. I had no doubt his pulse was in the 150s. Higher. How high does it go for elite athletes? 180? 190? Wherever LeBron was at, at the moment, it seemed as if he would need an hour to get back to normal. He was blowing hard and looked spent, seeming more interested in breathing than in game strategy.

And that was that.

It went to 102-88 by the end of the quarter, and we all knew the Cavaliers were done. The Cavaliers knew, too. They had tried to run with the Warriors and they had lost.

They had allowed the tempo to get out of control and their star had seemed to attempt, singlehandedly, to keep them in it by running the offense and then guarding Kevin Durant, or trying to, at the other end.

LeBron ended up playing 39 minutes and the Warriors won 132-113. James had a triple-double, but it was one of the least memorable triple-doubles in NBA history.

What is memorable is his huffing and puffing after the enormous effort in that third quarter.

The Cavaliers have to slow the pace if they hope to push this series to five or six games. They need to play in the half court and coach Tyronn Lue needs to call a timeout whenever the pace increases to where only the Warriors can go.

It was not a nervous-time game, and it did not come down to the final minutes, let alone a final shot. But it showed us the advantage the Warriors have, in tearing up and down the court and getting open shots.

The Cavaliers have to turn this series ugly; they need to bump and push and grab the Warriors and they need to wait deep into the 24-second limit whenever they have the ball. If the Warriors score, the Cavs need to remain composed and walk it back up the floor.

And they certainly need to keep the Warriors closer to 100 points than to the 113 and 129 the Warriors scored in the first two games.

I took a nap later in the day and woke up groggy. Yes, jet lag. As it turns out, that likely will be my only encounter with it in this series. The next “early” game would be Game 7, and this one won’t last that long.