‘Terrible feeling’ after Game 7 fuels Curry as Cavs arrive
OAKLAND — Stephen Curry still thinks about the last time the Cleveland Cavaliers were on the Oracle Arena court, when the horn sounded and Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals became a part of Warriors infamy.
In some ways, Curry hasn’t stopped thinking about that agonizing moment, those sounds, and his view of the Cavaliers’ celebrations after winning the championship.
Even back on that June day, Curry knew he wouldn’t want to forget it. That defeat was just another installment of the instant-history, rise-and-fall Warriors-Cavaliers continuum, and there surely would be more epic meetings to come.
Such as Monday, at Oracle, when the Warriors play Cleveland for the second time this regular season.
“I can go back to that moment a lot
just knowing the terrible feeling that it was,” Curry said of the end of Game 7. “I’ve watched on TV, other sports, other big games, other championship games, and you see how different people react in those moments, the winners, the losers, what-not.
“And there’s something powerful about just being on the court, not getting the job done, watching the other team celebrate. That was a motivating factor in a sense, but one that I knew down the road I would need to kind of go back to this moment right now so that doesn’t happen again.”
In June 2015, of course, the Warriors clinched their own championship on Cleveland’s home court, and Curry correctly points out that James and the Cavaliers used that memory to fuel their run at the Warriors in 2016.
The struggle continues, the stars collide, history beckons.
On Christmas Day, the Warriors blew a late 14-point lead and lost in Cleveland. If you count regular-season and playoff games over the previous two seasons, since James’ return to Cleveland in 2014, the head-to-head series stands at 10-8, in favor of the Warriors.
And one championship apiece, with some amount of over-the-top hoopla and aggrieved feelings on both sides.
“You could call it personal when two years ago we were celebrating a championship and they were the ones on the wrong side of that equation, and then they flipped the script this past year,” Curry said.
“So there’s a certain healthy resentment for a team based on those emotions. There’s no other team that I’ve seen celebrate on a court with us walking off as the losers other than Cleveland, so you have a certain kind of emotional reaction to that and I’m sure they did all last season.”
The point is, this is a perpetuating and nearly perfect matchup — the Lakers vs. Celtics of our time only getting better because of the resentments and legacies involved.
No two teams have ever faced each other in three successive NBA Finals, though the Warriors and Cavaliers are heavily favored to make that happen this June.
In the narrowest of terms, it comes down to Curry vs. James, and Curry is growing more comfortable with that cosmic square-off, fitting into the legendary line of Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain and Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird battles.
“Throughout history there’s going to be those kinds of narratives and yeah (James has) had an amazingly successful career, one that’s undoubtedly on the top of all-time greats,” Curry said. “But right now he’s still playing and there’s only one trophy at the end of the year.
“So however you want to shape it, there’s going to be some fun battles going forward.”
This matchup is why the Warriors wanted to sign Kevin Durant so badly this summer, and this matchup is why Durant felt he could fit in so quickly — the Warriors needed a different kind of offensive player for the final minutes against Cleveland, and now here’s Durant.
There have been some wobbles with Durant, and some great moments. So I asked Curry: Is Durant fitting in with the Warriors so far?
“He’s terrible, man — ship him back to Baltimore or wherever,” Curry deadpanned about Durant’s hometown area (actually Washington, D.C., which Curry knows). Pause for the rim shot. “He’s a great dude,” Curry continued, seriously. “He’s one of us.”
That’s an enormous statement from Curry, who flew out to The Hamptons in July with Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala to recruit Durant.
And it was a signal to Durant, and whoever else was watching, that Curry is absolutely committed to remaining with the Warriors deep into the future.
Curry, a two-time league MVP, will become a free agent in July but has given no indication that he would want to leave the Warriors, and recently the new collective bargaining agreement gave the Warriors the right to offer him about $209 million over five years this summer — about $75 million more than an outside team could offer him.
I still had to ask: Steph, can you fathom leaving this team this summer?
“I can’t,” Curry said. “Like I’ve said from Day 1 when I was first asked about free agency, this is a perfect place to play. Bay Area fans are amazing, our organization’s amazing, we’ve put together an amazing team that’s competing for championships every year.
“There’s really no reason that I can see right now that would draw me elsewhere.”
It’s all in place: Curry, Durant and the Warriors matched against James and the Cavaliers in a perennial quest for championships, and there is nothing better in sports, which nobody understands more thoroughly than Curry himself.