Warriors rally from 15 down to set up fourth consecutive matchup with Cleveland Cavaliers in NBA Finals
HOUSTON >> Shortly after the buzzer sounded, Warriors guard Stephen Curry darted off the court to hug his family. Forward Kevin Durant pumped out his fist and roared as he stood at center court.
The Warriors had just cemented a 101-92 win over the Houston Rockets on Monday in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals after trailing by as many as 15 points. The Warriors will play the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals for the fourth consecutive year
beginning with Game 1 on Thursday at Oracle Arena. And naturally, Curry and Durant were at the center of it all.
Durant finished with a team-leading 34 points,
while shooting 11 of 21 from the field and 5 of 11 from 3-point range. Curry added 27 points, while shooting 10 of 22 from the field and 7 of 15 from 3-point range. Yet, nothing became easy for either player as the box score suggests.
So when Curry greeted his family by the courtside seats, Curry looked both relieved and joyful.
“There’s a lot of just built-up anxiety about this moment. When you walk off the court with a win and get this fancy hat, it’s a good feeling,” Curry said, pointing to the Warriors’ cap that labeled them Western Conference champions. “We had to work for it, and you’ve got to appreciate the moment.”
The moment did not become as easy as simply giving the ball to Durant and Curry and getting out of the way.
The Warriors almost let it get away, thanks to a customary first-half sluggishness that featured lots of fouls, turnovers, missed shots and missed defensive assignments. Warriors coach Steve Kerr said on the TNT telecast that he witnessed the team’s worst first-quarter effort after trailing 24-19, while shooting 7 of 20 from the field and 2 of 10 from 3-point range and committing six turnovers.
Meanwhile, Durant had 13 points on 4-of-9 shooting and 2 of 6 from 3-point range in the first half. Curry finished the first half with only eight points on a 3-of-10 clip.
“I kept shooting the same shots, but it didn’t go in,” Curry said. “I sound like a broken record. But I never lose confidence in myself. I have a sense of amnesia.”
As a result: the Warriors outscored the Rockets 3316 in the third quarter to turn a 54-43 halftime deficit into a 76-69 lead heading into the fourth quarter. Curry had 14 points, while shooting 5 of 6 from the field and 4 of 5 from 3-point range. Durant added 10 points on a 3-of-6 clip, and a 2-of-4 mark from 3-point range. Even with his three fouls in the first quarter, Thompson ended with 19 points on 9-of-13 shooting.
“That’s ultimately what loosens the game up and what gets us going is Steph’s offense and Steph’s high screens and 3-point shots off those screens,” Kerr said. “For whatever reason, he seems to infuse us with energy. Kevin keeps us going with just his methodical scoring. But when Steph and Klay get it going from three, that’s when our team really seems to take off.”
It might sound absurd given the Warriors abundance
of riches. But the Warriors did not always find the right balance between Curry and Durant against the Rockets.
After shooting a combined 15 of 34 in Games 1 and 2, Curry had 35 points on 13-of-23 shooting in Game 3. He then shot inefficiently from the field in Game 4 (10 of 26) and from 3-point range in Game 5 (2 of 6). After posting 37 points in Game 1 and 38 points in Game 2 on a combined 27 of 49 from the field, the Rockets’ persistent switching prompted Durant to settle on isolation plays in off shooting nights in Game 3 (9 of 24), Game 4 (9 of 24), Game 5 (8 of 22) and Game 6 (6 of 17).
As Durant admitted, “sometimes when you want it too much, you get in your own way. The game is at a mental point in my career where I’m just trying to
figure things out there. I know what I can do physically. I know what I work on. I try to stick to what I do. But they did a good job of switching. I know the whole iso thing was a big thing around our team. We talked about it a lot.” The verdict? “We’re at our best when we move the ball and then go to them,” Thompson said. “We developed real movement and the ball is zipping around and that’s when the fourth quarters comes and we can throw it to a 6-foot-11 dude (Durant) or a point guard (Curry). It gets the defense spread out.”
So Curry and Durant played off of each other in the second half. Curry drilled a 23-footer that cut the Rockets’ lead to 61-58 with 5:21 left in the third quarter. Then, Durant tied the game, 61-61, at the 4:29 mark. Curry then sank a 22-foot 3-pointer, converted on a finge roll and then made a step–back shot from 26 feet for a 72-63 lead with 2:11 left. Durant’s 11-foot jumper extended the lead to 76-67 with 33.9 seconds remaining.
“You have to have endurance. You’ve got to have resiliency,” Curry said. “You’ve got to have confidence in yourself, no matter how the game’s going
up until that point, that you can turn it around.”
Curry and Durant finally did that, both securing the Warriors’ NBA Finals aspirations and restoring a dynamic that previously was unstoppable.