THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Saturday, June 4, 2016

Coaches often times preach strength in numbers and anybody on any given night can have a big game.

Thursday night in the sports world was a pretty good indication of that idea.

IN THE highly anticipated opening game of the NBA Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors, it wasn’t LeBron James or Stephen Curry that took the game over.

Far from it.

Granted, James had 23 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists for Cleveland, but that was in a 104-89 loss in a game that was turned more by the guys on the bench than those in the starting lineup.

Golden State — keyed by a 20-point night from Shaun Livingston — outscored the Cavalier reserves 45-10 in the game.

Curry, who was recently named a unanimous Most Valuable Player, finished with 11 points and had a bad night shooting the ball. Same for former Washington State standout Klay Thompson, who finished with nine points.

And while Cleveland hung around in the game, even taking the lead late in the third quarter, it seemed as if the Cavs were caught off guard by the depth of Golden State.

Whatever Cleveland was trying to do on defense, Golden State had an answer for.

Golden State beat Cleveland in six games in last year’s Finals with most of the same guys back for the series this year.

Something better change quickly for Cleveland, or it might not make it that far again this year.

MEANWHILE A little way down the coast of California, the San Diego Padres were doing their best to 10-run the Seattle Mariners, building a 12-2 lead after five innings.

Then, things changed for the M’s, with a five-run sixth inning followed by a nine-run seventh to take a 16-12 lead.

And as ridiculous as that might seem, the Mariners — who seem to go homestands without scoring runs — finished the game 11 for 12 with runners in scoring position. All of Seattle’s runs in the seventh inning came with two outs.

With the win, Seattle became the first team since 1990 to rally from a 10-run deficit in a nine-inning game.

Seattle also broke a franchise record that had stood for 20 years, when the M’s came back from down eight to beat the Angels 11-10.

And while it’s hard not to have a good game in a rally of 14 runs in two innings, it was Seattle’s reserves from Franklin Gutierrez (two RBIs), Dae-Ho Lee (four RBIs), Stefan Romero (one RBI) and Shawn O’Malley (one RBI) that ignited the rally.

OFTEN TIMES in sports, you never know just how a person is going to play when it comes to a reserve role.

Some might only get a few minutes, then disappear for the rest of a series and not make much of an impact.

As someone that often times sat on the sidelines, whether that was in the crowd or along the bench, it gives a little bit of hope to all bench warmers that when your name is called, you can impact the outcome.

The chances of it happening again in either case might not be that great, but they really don’t need to.

All you need is one chance.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.