‘We wanted it so bad’, Curry hails first play-off success since 2019
STEPH Curry has gone all the way to an NBA championship three times, but merely to clear the first hurdle in the play-offs this time came as a huge relief to the Golden State Warriors star.
After two years of failing to reach the post-season, Golden State are back and in the hunt, through to the second round after a 4-1 series win over the Denver Nuggets, sealed by a 102-98 win in Game 5 on Wednesday.
Curry’s 30 points, five rebounds and five assists helped the Warriors counter the monumental threat posed by Denver’s Nikola Jokic, who also scored 30 points and managed 19 rebounds and eight assists.
It was a first start for Curry since he was eased back from a foot injury, and the Warriors now await the winner of the first-round tussle between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Minnesota Timberwolves, with the Grizzlies leading 3-2.
After championships in 2015, 2017 and 2018, the Warriors were beaten in the NBA Finals in 2019 and then endured two taxing seasons.
To be winning again in the play-offs gave Curry obvious satisfaction.
“It means a lot. I never take it for granted,” he said. “We understand we hopefully have a lot left to do, but getting to the playoffs and getting through a series and winning four games against a good team, it’s hard.
“Every team wants to be in this position at the end of the year. For me, Draymond [Green], Klay [Thompson], [Kevon] Looney, we’ve all been there before and love the competition and the environment.
“It was just a weird feeling, because we hadn’t been there in a while and wanted it so bad and kind of made it a lot more difficult for ourselves, but we still remembered how to do it which was a good feeling.” The Warriors had to reel in a Nuggets side who threatened to take the series to a sixth game.
Curry said: “They had a lot of life in that third quarter, and it was a good reminder of how hard it is to win a play-off game, and how hard it is to close a team out, and just dealing with the nerves of it all because it matters so much. We wanted it so much, it kind of got in our own way a little bit.
“The fourth quarter was just about trying to find a way to get it done, get enough stops to speed up the game, put some pressure on them, and we were able to do that.
“Everyone contributed, so it was a fun way to finish the game. It was not exactly how you would draw it up, but a playoff type of environment where can you get the win and get out of here.”