Sacrificing “from top to bottom” to chase the dream.
Golden State embraces concept of joyful basketball to win another championship
Ring chasers. That’s what some have called the Warriors.
It’s a derogatory term, implying the Warriors are soulless and superficial mercenaries whose only aim is to collect jewelry, to burnish personal legacies.
But there’s another name for the Warriors, a name that many fans, including tons of ’em outside the Bay Area, would apply to the new NBA champions: Dream chasers. “We sacrificed from top to bottom,” David West said. Kevin Durant “could shoot 30 times a night and he didn’t, Steph (Curry) could shoot 30 shots a night and he didn’t — because they were about winning. It’s about making the extra pass, outpassing your opponents,
doing the right things to win the game. Period. That’s all it’s about.”
For the Warriors it’s never been about the bling, although they will wear their rings proudly, and they will kiss and hug Old Larry to death, as Stephen Curry referred to the Lawrence O’Brien championship trophy.
Bling is fine, but for the Warriors, it’s about the run and the fun, the joy and the brotherhood, the feeling of playing the best basketball on the planet for the best part of three years now.
The Warriors finally pulled away from the Cleveland Cavaliers Monday night, winning 129120, to win the Finals 4-1. The numbers aren’t what matter most, but worth noting:
The Warriors sliced through the playoffs like a chainsaw through a stick of butter, winning 16 of 17 games. And they finished the season 45-5 at home, including 9-0 in the playoffs.
Monday’s winning margin, nine points, is wildly deceiving. The Cavaliers, by winning Game 4 and taking an early lead Monday, created an atmosphere inside Oracle where the collective anxiety hung like invisible fog. All the AC in the Bay Area couldn’t stop the flow of flop sweat as the fans, who knew a Cavs win Monday would threaten the legitimacy of the Warriors’ entire three-year run. The Big Dream was in jeopardy of being reduced to monstrous disappointment, their quest an object of ridicule.
Kevin Durant, so cool he makes James Bond look like Barney Fife, so cool he dropped in 39 points Monday without (seemingly) breaking a sweat, said he’d been “anxious and jittery,” couldn’t sleep for two days.
When it was over, the relief was explosive, for the Warriors and for their fans, many of whom can vividly recall the two decades of abject failure that came before the Warriors’ run of crazy excellence.
A word of praise for the Cavs, especially LeBron James, who scored 41. The Warriors’ championship will be burnished historically by the obstacle they had to overcome in James. Love him or hate him, he is phenomenal, relentless, a beautiful hoops machine with a genius basketball brain and freight-train heart.
James and his mates jammed up the Warriors’ flowing offense over the final two games, like a guy who messes up the party by trying to flush a beer can. They made the Warriors work like coal miners to bust out and win, and in doing so, James and the Cavs elevated the night, the series, and the season, to a heroic level.
When it was over, James gave a long hug to Durant. Warriors’ coach Steve Kerr and team general manager Bob Myers wept in each other’s arms. The hugging and crying might go on for days, because for the Warriors, this win, this championship, has deep meaning.
It goes back at least to last July, when the Warriors started their alleged ring-chasing by signing Durant, causing many to cry foul, saying the Warriors were overloaded and that Durant was a sell-out.
Same was said of the Warriors’ stars who helped recruit him, and for Warriors like David West, Zaza Pachulia and Andre Iguodala, who all spurned more lucrative offers to throw in with the Warriors. Ring chasers? Or was it simply a quest to find a higher level of basketball? Would you rather roll in the dirt with the dogs or soar with the eagles? Isn’t it a worthwhile quest to explore the upper limits of your game, and the game of basketball?
Durant chose to follow his heart, convinced by the child-like show of brotherhood by the other Warriors who recruited him. They sold him on a new concept: basketball as fun and joy.
Kerr is a ring-chaser, too. Like he needs a seventh ring. He chose the Warriors because he saw the raw material for his dream: a free-flowing, selfless, joyous group of guys. Kerr’s first move was to “demote” Iguodala to second string. Iguodala embraced the challenge.
Two championships in three seasons, and who was the Finals MVP the first time — and played a
key role off the bench Monday? Old folk Iguodala, the second-stringer with the creaky knees. Six dunks in Game 5, 20 points, tenacious D, killer poise, monstrous contribution.
Iguodala is the perfect example of a concept expressed by Warriors assistant coach Bruce Fraser. Asked a couple months ago to explain why the team’s defense is so effective, Fraser offered: “Emotional connectivity. They play for each other.”
The Warriors rocked that EC on defense, on offense, through bad times and outside criticism and long bus trips.
If you watched the Warriors gut their way through the playoffs, and especially Monday night, you saw the value of all that corny stuff Kerr preaches, stuff that the players buy into like eager little kids, even though they play in a league where true teamwork and team love are often sneered at.
The Warriors had an optional shootaround Monday morning.
“Everybody was there,” West said, “everybody working. That’s what we do. That’s why we won it. That’s what this group is about. . .We stayed off the streets, we stayed in the gym and won. That’s all it’s about.”
To play like the Warriors play, to be like the Warriors are together, to hit the gym with joy and purpose, that’s the gold that these ring-chasing gold-diggers were after.