Durant: ‘ Only as good as my teammates’

rant’s number, winning 14 of their 18 career regular- season meetings and beating his Thunder in five games during the 2012 Finals.

But this Durant offering was a transcendent start to this version of the matchup, the kind of opening act that should leave the Cavs wondering if this tall task is simply too much to bear.

“I mean, you take one of the best teams that we had ever assembled last year, that we saw in the regular season and the postseason, and then in the offseason you add a high- powered offensive talent like that and a great basketball IQ like that?” said James, who had 28 points, 15 rebounds, eight assists, eight turnovers and a - 22 plus- minus rating that was worst of all the Cavs. “It is what it is. We got to figure out how to combat that, which is going to be a tough challenge for us.”

All season long, when anyone would ask Durant or any otherWarriors player what they might say to those who deemed this an unfair fight because of the team’s excess of superstars, their answer remained the same: rings don’t lie. Win it all, and let the narratives fall where they may.

The psyche applies to Durant more than anyone else because he’s 10 seasons into a Hall of Fame career and still pursuing his first piece of jewelry.

“I’m only as good as my teammates,” Durant said. “And Steph and Klay ( Thompson) and Draymond and Zaza ( Pachulia) and the rest of the guys, we ... try to complement each other and make the game easier for each other.”

They all played a part, but . Durant gets the credit.

“He’s looking to do what he ( has done) his whole career, all this year in the playoffs, just being himself,” Curry said of Durant. “So I said to the team going into the game ( that) we’ve just got to be ourselves. Don’t worry about any other story line, anything that doesn’t matter to the game. And we were really, really good in that department at just being ourselves, playing Warriors basketball, knowing there’s a lot of talent out there.”