As the late baseball great Yogi Berra once said, it’s deja vu all over again – but the sport is basketball, as the Golden State Warriors prepare to face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the upcoming National Basketball Association championship finals for the second straight season.
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Curry won his duel with Russell Westbrook, who had 19 points and 13 assists, but was only 7 for 21 from the field. Curry hit one over 7-foot Steven Adams in the third, and Thompson wound up with 30 3s.
Having a shot a bad percentage in the last couple of games, Kevin Durant was determined to get his teammates involved and the trick worked up until the Thunder started missing shots. “When we’re down 3-1, everyone thought the wheels were falling off”.
But after a fight like the one the Warriors just survived against the Thunder-one that required incomprehensible resolve, luck and something like the invisible hand of fate-it’s hard to concoct a scenario in which this Golden State team fails to finish the job.
Curry pump faked Ibaka behind the three point line, made all three free throws from that foul call, and then knocked down a three point dagger with 26 seconds left to end OKC’s season.
“No one ever had any doubt that we could get this done”, All-Star forward Draymond Green said. The GSW scored 17 of 37 three-point shots while OKC eked out just 7 of 27.
If not for the truly unique shot-making of those two players-against dialed-in schemes, dogged coverage and incomparable Thunder length-Oklahoma City would be headed for the Finals. Oklahoma City led by as many as 13 in the first half. All series long Curry had struggled to beat the Thunder bigs who switched onto him off picks, but not in Game 7 when he hit four threes over those bigs, and blew by them and into the lane a host of other times.
“We never lost confidence, and every game just played with fearlessness and that confidence that we could get back to the Finals however we had to get it done”, MVP Stephen Curry said after his 36-point performance in Monday night’s 96-88 clincher of the Western Conference finals. “At that point, Durant can make a long-term decision that takes into account Westbrook’s intentions”. “It was, ‘Let’s figure this out, let’s go out and take it one game at a time and claw our way back into the series and see what happens.’ We followed that kind of mindset these last three games”.
KD didn’t take his first shot until more than six minutes into the game: a wing 3, which he made.
Durant did score seven straight points to cut an 11-point deficit to four with 1:40 remaining. Look at their shot chart from Game 7. “But we could have said a lot of what-ifs throughout the whole playoffs”.
In a fight to the very finish, the NBA’s reigning champions did what they do best, they finished the game.
Perhaps the butterflies flew away as Golden State stomped Oklahoma City in the third quarter 29-12.
Durant will be an unrestricted free agent in the offseason for the first time in his career.
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“I was really proud of our team, obviously coming off a tough loss in Game 6 at home and to come back and respond the way these guys did, as a coach I couldn’t be any prouder”, Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. “I could tell in Game 6 that he was starting to feel like himself”. Because once we figured something out, we can get it rolling, and I think, although we lost Game 4, and we got punished, I think we figured it out.
