His face grim and his answers clipped, Stephen Curry said Thursday morning that the Warriors are prepared to meet the stiff challenge of being down 3-1 against the Oklahoma City Thunder in must-win Game 5 of the NBA Western Conference finals.
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That emotion after the basket? That’s what the Warriors were missing in their two games in Oklahoma City. Golden State started the game with the sort of energy you would expect in an elimination game, and Curry looks sharp. The challenge will be maintaining this against the athletic Thunder for a full 48 minutes. The Thunder also is playing with supreme confidence after beating San Antonio twice on the road in the second round and dismantling the Warriors for a 3-1 lead in this series. They’ll need more of that from Thompson if Curry (31 points on 20 shots) is going to continue playing like a slightly older version of himself.
Nobody is ready to rule out a team that was being considered the greatest of all-time just weeks ago just yet.
Only nine teams out of 232 have rallied from 3-1 deficits in National Basketball Association playoff history, and only three have done it in a conference final.
They go back to Oakland for Game 5 on Thursday night, to play for another trip here, to a house of horrors they departed Tuesday night wearing their first consecutive defeats by the combined, astounding sum of 52 points. “Everybody’s pretty locked in, focused on the adjustments we need to make and how we need to play. We’ve just got to come out there and be who we are”, Kevin Durant said.
Kerr’s not wrong, and it’s important to note that he hedges the denial – Curry may not be injured but he may be affected by the injury and the time off. Curry curtly told reporters his knee is “fine” after Game 4. Stephen Curry can’t simply wash away a less-than-100-percent knee injury, but can he play through it? This postseason we have seen almost 50% of games where teams have won by 10+ points. How do they get that swagger back? “We can’t put too much pressure on ourselves”. The just haven’t shown the vulnerabilities that appeared the past two games in Oklahoma City, where Golden State lost back-to-back games for the first time during its record-setting season.
The Thunder are playing with all the poise and passion on both ends, while the Warriors haven’t been able to hang around the past two games, in part because of uncharacteristic miscues. “They want what we have”.
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However, Miami may have to reshuffle other players in order to get Durant. The Thunder are making things hard for him and being physical with him.
