Win tonight ideal for Thunder
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Thunder won’t say it has to win Game 6 against the Golden State Warriors tonight to win the Western Conference Finals.
The alternative is less than ideal.
Win at home tonight and Oklahoma City will advance to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2012. Lose and the Thunder will be forced to play Game 7 in Oakland. Calif. The defending champion Warriors have lost three home games this season.
Thunder coach Billy Donovan said his players don’t need to get ahead of themselves worrying about results.
“We’ve got to play the 48 minutes tomorrow night,” Donovan said Friday. “That’s really what it comes down to. You can get caught up in thinking about the future and what the results mean at the end of the game. But the bottom line is the result at the end of the game will happen, and what you don’t want to do is be focused on the result and forget to do your job during the course of 48 minutes.”
Oklahoma City has done the job at home in the series. The Thunder won Game 3, 133-105, tying a franchise record for points scored in a playoff game. The Thunder came back with more of the same in Game 4, a 118-94 blowout that put the defending champion Warriors on the brink of elimination. The Warriors know it’s going to take something special to produce a different result at the arena known as Loud City tonight.
“It will take all of our IQ, all of our gamesmanship, and just 48 great minutes to get a win down there, considering how the last two games have gone,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry said.
The Warriors saved their season with a 120-111 win Thursday night in Oakland. There’s still hope that they can defend their title.
“Our guys have had a spectacular run here the last two years,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “They’ve loved every second of it. They don’t want it to end, and no matter how you look at it, if you’re not the last team standing, it’s tough. It’s a disappointing way to go out. So we want to hang in there. We want to win the next two and get back to the Finals.”
“We play better when we’re having fun,” Curry said. “We played like we were really stressed in [Oklahoma City], and it showed. Got to bottle up that joy and take it with us on the plane to [Oklahoma City] and be ready [tonight].”