As LeBron James and Kyrie Irving poured in shot after shot Wednesday night in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr said he kept repeating the same message to his players.

“They’re going to get tired,” Kerr recalled saying, speaking of James and Irving. “Stay in front of them. Force them into outside shots, if you can. Fatigue will play a role.”

Ultimately, Kerr believes fatigue did play a part in his team closing the game on an 11-0 run en route to a 118-113 win that gave the Warriors a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

“We just felt like the way they play, Kyrie and LeBron had it going the whole game, but that’s pretty taxing to go one-on-one the whole game,” Kerr said. “Both those guys were amazing, 38 and 39. But that takes a lot out of you.

“And I think when you get guys playing 45, 44 minutes, basically attacking one-on-one the whole game, it’s — you hope eventually it’s going to take its toll,” Kerr added. “I wasn’t sure after a while; they just were going nuts. But I think that we just stayed with it, and our defense finally kicked in.”

James scored 39 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and tallied nine assists in about 46 minutes. Irving finished with 38 points in about 44 minutes.

But the Cavaliers missed their final eight shots, and overall, they shot 3-of-20 on contested shots in the fourth quarter, with James and Irving going 1-for-10.

Neither James nor Irving admitted to being tired.

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