Dubb Dynasty is a production of iHeartMedia and the NBA.
They do have a time out, decide not to use a Curry wait on top with six steps of second the morning, we'll polly join a touchdowns, beat the.
Clock from midport, Curry Hey back home, no file speaking for Cleveland.
I had to Curry.
Curry sets fire, puts up back, Steph Curry home way.
Down from mid courtway.
Those were some of the moments that transformed Steph Curry from most valuable to mostly magical. I'm Israel Utierres and this is dubbed Dynasty. Curry shots often start from so far out the ball could use a roadmap to find the basket. The shots begin from such a distance you could hold a short conversation about it between release and swish. It's just one ingredient of Curry magic. It just so happens to be his most mesmerizing trick.
Curl will just dribble it out and the friends, who are also obviously aware of Paul George there one.
Tool ware whoa job by half Paul point five seconds for Curry at three D three, The basketball like a laser cutting through the atmosphere, regardless of the elements finds its way to the rip, whether it's coming from seventy feet away in a game that counts, or from well off the court when they don't count. As part of his pregame shooting routine at home, Curry seems to have full control of the basketball even after it leaves his hands. Only it's not an illusion. Shot clock winding down.
Rry's gonna have to put it up.
Launches it up.
Shot clock Wow, Steph Curry with the shock clock expiring.
Step Warriors assistant coach and Curry's shooting coach on the team, Bruce Frasier, better known by the team as Q, has watched Curry hit one long, ridiculous shot after another in practice settings. He knows the secret to all of Curry's trips.
Somehow has a genetic gift with hand eye coordination. That's his genetic gift and as far as superior than to any human I've ever seen and in anything. So you give him a bowling ball, you give him a tennis racket. You know he's not professional, but he's elite at anything that you hand him and say, this is the game. So it's kind of the ball and stick. You do this and we're going to and he's going to be
elite at it. Right. I can't imagine being able to flip balls with my left hand the same as my right hand, to shoot it from the here, to shoot it from here. But this guy, it's not just in these big games, but it's also just when he's messing around in the gym. So I have seen these shots, you know, throughout the years, over and over again. So in that moment, you know, Steph has practiced these shots, and he loves big moments. He loves the show. He
loves the moment. No moment's too big for him. That's what he wants.
Two seconds to work with Curry from Midcorn.
If you were going to say, what's the mechanical brilliance, He's able to generate power in a physics form like I wouldn't know. But when you start a shot, there's there's kind of a momentum that goes into it. Along with a finely tuned skill, it's the kinetic chain that you have to generate that power. Because if you look at Stef's arms, he's got some you know, genetic beast Like.
He's not a superhero, he's a self made MVP. He's a common man with thin arms and thin body and six three, but he's able to generate that force where that ball finishes right at the right moment. It's like a golfer and he's got people. It's like that force is generated and he's able to let it go right at the right moment, and he's perfected that so he shoots normal shots from range that most people aren't able to generate that kind of power, no matter how strong
they are. That's one of his brilliances. It's the hand eye and the ability to generate that connectic force as you say to about ball, to release right at the right time, and then to fine tune at the end.
If you ever get access to a hot tub time machine and wanted to watch one of the most electric, satisfying and transformative seasons ever, set that hot tub for the twenty fifteen to sixteen NBA season and focus in on Curry.
He was coming off.
His first NBA Most Valuable Player award and was on the defending champion team that was effectively running it back. Steph was twenty seven years old, at the peak of his prime, and had overcome the ankle injuries and the doubt he had helped Warriors Basketball go from a fun brand to a franchise, lifting the NBA in a time when peak of his powers Lebron and end of career Kobe Bryant were still giving the NBA some life, Curry and the Warriors were providing the energy and the electricity somehow.
Despite a surprise season that brought the Warriors their first championship in forty years, it felt like Golden State still had more to give, and Curry what's the best example of that. His confidence shot through the roof this season, and his play demonstrated as much. As Fraser explains, Curry was prepared for even more of a breakthrough because his initial point to believe under Steve Kerr was such a success.
I was lucky to be good friends with Steve and former teammates, so I had a lot of insight into what we may want to do offensively, but it was uncertain, and Steve had a vision, but you know, we had He had questioned, He had he had considered a lot of the things that his former coaches that he really liked did and he wanted to implement some of those things. But Steph was the question marking it because and the rest of the team, you know, like, do you put
in the triangle offense? Because he loved the triangle from Phil and what they did in Chicago, and he loved the movement and the re based actions of it. But it might take the ball out of Steph's hands. That was a question. And Steph with the ball in his hands was brilliant. And then you know, with the other pieces move in harmony with that. And you know, even some of the stuff that Papovich did with the Horns action in the Strong and Weeks, So he wanted to
include some of that. And ironically, he really loved some of the kind of the split action that Sloan did. And so there was Lennie Wilkins, there was some there was some influence from some of his former coaches that he was considering piecing together. But how would this all work with Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. And so the the take on it was a hybrid of that of those things, knowing that Steph still had to have the
ball in his hands. And as we grew with Steph and that team, the reality was is that we couldn't take Steph's kind of Mustang spirit away. From him. So he was going to make mistakes, he was going to throw the ball around a little bit, and he was going to shoot from wherever we wanted. And that was good because if we started to talk about shot selection or this is a good shot, there was a bad shot, we felt like that would take away his spirit and we wanted that spirit because it was it was a
brilliant spirit. So he sort of showed us what he was capable of, and I think Steve, without contradicting myself, bridled that enough to you know, to make it click with all with all the others. So we had to live through some of those crazy shots, but some of those crazy shots went in. So is that a crazy shot or is that a brilliance of this player? And so we we learned that that was one of the stuff, you know, strengths, and.
It really changed the game with the range he had and the ability to shoot early in the shot clot where he maybe you're going to get something better if you run in and play, but we let stuff and Clay both go.
With Curry as free and confident as ever, the small details of his game began to improve, making him something the game had never seen before. A mix of grace, skill and killer instinct that could get his buckets from anywhere on the floor. Somehow, he was better than the previous season, an MVP season, because he read the game so much better. According to Fraser, he.
Learned how to move without the ball. That was something that he hadn't done much of prior to that time. I've mentioned this about the Memphis series. He learned how to relocate a similar he learned how to set screens for others. He's a brilliant screamer. And then he became a much better passer. He was always a capable passer, but he learned how to pass. So the evolution of stuff Curry as a player and the skill set evolved, and the evolution of stuff.
Is as kind of the maturity of his game started to grow too. And that's where it is now that that was those were growing years for him to start to see the game in different ways and then to utilize it to his skill set. And so the championship was proof that this is the way he could be elite, not just in a high ball screen or not just in a one.
On one action. He could be elite by using all of these tools to perfect his game, and he had the people around him Andre Rudala, Andrew Boget, brilliant passer, Sean Livingston. He had these guys that could get him the ball in places that he was unstoppable, and he moved those places and they cater tuned. So I think I think the mindset for him was I can evolve in this way.
Steph wasted no time showing off the new, finer details of his game in the fifteen to sixteen season. Chef Curtain, as Drake first called him in a twenty thirteen song zero to one hundred, was cooking with the sauce from the jump, scoring forty in his first game, then fifty three in his third game, both coming against the poor New Orleans Pelicans.
Got babit switched out on a hurry for three and fifty one.
Fuck, he makes believers out of it, but they still don't get.
Up any closer.
Hurry, He's going to go to the line.
He hits New Orleans for forty opening night.
And sitting on fifty two right now fifty three.
Step talked to Warriors sideline with Porter ros Goold on Blue Day after the game about his ever lengthening range.
So hard this season.
It looks like you are getting very comfortable taking deep, deep, deep deep threes.
Are you working on that? I mean, what is your range? Is there anywhere that you hesitate?
I mean, with that reason, bruh, I hope that I keep making him. It gives me that much more confidence. Is if you mess a couple in a row, No, I get a little bit close if we keep shooting. But I mean, as long as I'm making him, I'll keep taking them.
Within those but then rhythm.
That fifty three point game would already be, by advanced statistical measure, his best complete game of the season, but it was just the beginning of jaw dropping shooting performances. He was in such a comfort zone to start this season, Curry put on some of the more efficient shows of his career, like the time he visited his hometown of Charlotte on December second, with his father Dell watching, as he normally does in these contests because he's the color
analyst on the Hornets TV broadcast. Curry dropped forth, but he did so on just eighteen shots with four free throws. It sounds like a mathematical riddle, but he managed forty points because he hit fourteen of his eighteen shots for a seventy eight percent clip, including eight of his eleven three point attempts.
Curry just incredible, Hope, That's what he does. He is the best shooter on the planet today and he knows it.
He delivered. Now, I can totally understand if you're confused given the reaction of that crap. But yes, that game was in sharp. It was a road game. Until it was After that game, the Warriors twentieth of the season, Curry's team still hadn't lost. They were undefeated and stayed
so for another four games after that. It would immediately spark the question of whether this team could break the Chicago Bulls nineteen ninety six mark of seventy two to ten as the greatest regular season ever, and the twenty four wins to open the campaign broke the record for the longest win streak to start a season by nine games. It was a magical run in the midst of a magical run, two ninety one Boston by one Curry.
Wow, I want to tell you if that is one of the best huts I've ever seen.
Anybody think I'm ne'.
A minute to go in the game, Green they want, you know, they want Curry handling the ball and Harry coups.
There it goes, ooh, you didn't be that wasn't just another roadkie. That was teeny Garden in Boston.
Don't think we didn't hear a good amount of cheers mixed in with those groans. The Warriors were becoming a phenomenon everywhere, but it was missing something someone.
To be more precise, Steve Kerr had not been a part of it. Two days into training camp, the Warriors coach decided to take time off to address complications from what was supposed to be a simple back procedure to repair a ruptured disc.
So you know, when you when you have a surgery, you asked, you know, what are the what are the risks? And so I, my, my, my surgery was the least risky of any vacks. You know, it's the most basic micro diskected me where there you have a ruptured disc and they're just taking the pieces of the discount. And so I asked about what the risks were, and I said, well, okay,
well what are the chances of that? And I'm not going to get into all the you know, the medical detail of what happened, but basically the chances were incredibly slim that anything would go wrong, but they did.
What had been considered routine far as back surgeries go turned into a nightmare. During the operation in twenty fifteen, Kerr's dura, the membrane surrounding the spinal cord was accidentally cut, allowing some cerebro spinal fluid to leak. The leak caused severe headaches and fatigue, and by September of twenty fifteen,
Kerr needed another surgery to address it. He was still recovering from said surgery when training camp started, so the riggers that come with coaching were impossible for him, and the recovery would last far longer than the forty three games he missed.
So it was pretty rough and life changing and changed everything in my life in terms of how how I had to approach things, how I had to work to get my body right, how I had to work to manage the chronic pain that ensued headaches. It was a
challenge of a lifetime and remains that. You know, that was the biggest thing that I will ever face because health trump's all, you know, the other stuff is all all dependent on good health, you know, enjoying your life and family and your work and it all is dependent on health. So it was a tough, tough time.
It was terrible.
It was terrible. I mean I was I was thrilled for.
The team, but I felt left out.
You know, I'm laying at home on my bed and watching this dominant team win night after night, and I'm not there to enjoy being part of it. Yeah, it was. It was rough.
Rick Welts, Warriors, team president at the time, compared this extended stretch to the time Curry was battling ankle injuries. There was uncertainty surrounding the future of one of the key and most treasured figures of the organization.
Here's Wells one of my scariest times, you know, in terms of the people that you're around and you see,
you know, the challenges that they face. And just as you described, I mean just his face was a different color, like he just wasn't uh, you know, you could just see what he was battling and heroically but but still, you know, pain is pain, and there's just no way to completely avoid it or basket and you know, stepping away in the midst of you know, an amazing run playoff run right, and not knowing again if you're going
to be healthy enough to come back. For the same reasons we talked about with Steph, just at that point it was such a beloved part of the organization that it was it was much more a personal thing than it was like value to the team thing, because he really wanted for him to recover in a way that he could enjoy life the way that he always enjoyed life, because that that that life joy he shared with everybody around him and continues to to this day.
The warriors near spotless play for half that season didn't mask the pain for Kerk, but it did take attention away from the fact he was out. In fact, as memory serves, there wasn't that much national sympathy for Kerr because we really didn't know how bad the complications were. There were, however, raging debates about whether Kerr deserved credit for the wins. Those thirty nine wins and four losses where the Warriors were coached by assistant Luke Walton, those
were credited to Steve Kerr. It was a technicality that stirred so much debate it even reached Kerr directly before he came back to the side, well maybe not directly.
The last few weeks before I came back, I was traveling with the team before I started coaching, and we were in Portland and Luke Walton and I went to dinner with a couple of the other coaches and he jumped in an uber and Luke's in the front seat. I'm behind the driver and the driver says, hey, you're Luke Walton and he goes yeah. He goes, man, it's it's it's bull that coach Kerr is getting credit for all your wins. I mean, you're like thirty nine and two and they and I read the other day they're
given the given the credit to coach Kerr. He gets the wins on his record, and we just it was it was so fun.
We ran with it, you know. We all started chirping away like yeah, it's such cool like and he's too like that guy, you know, and he's taking credit for and he's not even here.
Fraser was one of the coaches in that uber. He remembers Walton nailing the dismount. At the end of the car ride.
We get to the restaurant, we got out of the car and Luth looks at the driver, said, Hey, what your name? Guy's mad. He's like came out meet Steve Kerr. Guy, guy who turned like ghostly white. It's funny that you know, and Steve's got a good sense of Umisoda's luke.
So Kerr would struggle with back pain and headaches even after returning, still occasionally taking time away from the team, including during the twenty sixteen playoffs. As a sideline reporter, I'd get access to Kerr before games along with the rest of the broadcast team, and around this time he often looked and sounded miserable. He tried to be as pleasant as he'd always been and share stories like he always had, but you can tell he was grinning through pain.
He couldn't sit properly in his chair. His face was some combination of gray and pale green. His smile was certainly forced, and this was after he'd been back for some time. Needless to say, Kerr absolutely needed those forty three games off. And while Walton's part in this usually just restarts the debate about who deserves the wins, the assistant coach who's now with the Detroit Pistons deserves a ton of credit for nurturing this dynasty at a key period.
Bruce Fraser noticed Kerr's condition at the start of training camp and notified Welton of what might come.
I don't want to sound like some whisper or some of here, but I went to Luke and I said, you you should be ready to coach this team. And he's like, what I said, I don't know if he's going to be able to do it, and he looked at me like I was crazy. I said, you better start preparing. And to credit to Luke, you know, Luke prepared and was had the respect of the players in a good way where he was he was a relevant
former player and capable, very very bright basketball mind. You don't always get that through just talking to him because he's pretty laid back, you know, California draws, but he's very very bright mind and the player is Actually our team was so such a well oiled machine at that point after that first year and all the patterns that we had rehearsed and gotten better at with what we
were doing. That credit to those guys. They they not only were really good at, you know, the things we had put in, but they gave Luke a lot of rope and wanted to do well for him too, so he had the respect of the players. I think they knew that they gave him rope with some of our you know ato's, and they came execution me. Luke and I had a kind of a running joke. We had a play called dive roll, which was just sort of fake ball screen into a high ball screen for Steph.
And anytime we weren't certain of what we may want to do, Luke would looked at me and say dive roll and start laughing because we knew that that was going to be the ball into STEP's hands and there's a good chance something good was going to happen.
Behind Steph. The Warriors dived and rolled to a thirty nine and four record on pace to break the record for the best season ever. The difference in Curry was evident. His three point attempts jumped from eight point one in his first MVP season to eleven point two to a game in the fifteen to sixteen season, yet he shot those with even better efficiency. His scoring increased by more than six points to a league leading thirty point one
a game, the largest leap ever for an MVP. Steph finished fourth in the Most Improved voting that year also but lost in a landslide to Portland CJ. McCullum. Just like Rookie of the Year back in OH nine, Steph probably should have won this award too. If there was one moment where you could identify how confident Curry felt in what would be his second MVP season, and the moment the entire NBA realized Curry must be guarded anywhere and everywhere. It was at the end of an overtime
game in Oklahoma City on February twenty seven. After the break, we hear from Mike Breen himself on what may be the most memorable single shot in Steph Curry's career and the origin of the double bang. Klay Thompson had already scored thirty two, Draymond Green had fourteen assists, six steals, and four block shots, and yet the Warriors in thunder wearin overtime and tied at one eighteen. Russell Westbrook missed a jumper with eight seconds remaining, which Andre Iguidala rebounded
and kicked over to Curry. Having already nailed eleven three pointers in this game, Curry casually brought the ball up the left side of the court, and when he was parallel to the r in the thunder logo mere steps past half court, Curry launched one of the gutsiest regular season shots, a thirty seven foot bomb that had everyone shot. He heard this call at the top of the episode, but it's well worth hearing again. They do have a time out decide.
Not to use of Curry quite on.
A step of.
Curry what six steps of a second remating but probably a choice of stuff.
But continues.
If Andre Rogerson, the defender on that play, who recognized the situation a smidge too late, was the most shot by Steph's launch, then Mike Breen was clearly second. Breen had already coined the term bangon for whenever a player would hit a big shot. This shot by Curry was the first double bang of Breen's career. There would be a handful of others over the years, but this was the double bang origin moment.
That was the epitome of the self confidence that he has and has always had. And you know, and so he'll tell you all the time, his self confidence is from all the work put into getting to that point. But there was nobody in the building but Steph Curry, who thought he was going to put off the shot when he did, he had a little extra time. The thunder didn't think he was going to shoot it there. I certainly didn't think he was going to shoot it there.
I had to play catch up on the call because I didn't expect it, and just again's that's the ultimate self confident shot by the greatest shooter who's ever played. It's a complete out of body experience. I don't plan it. It just was so shocking and it happened so quickly that I kind of lost my mind, and I remember thinking after like, did I go over the top there? Because I felt like I that's as much as I
ever lost it on a call. But it the moment deserved it because of who he was, what they were doing, and what he just did.
This was already four months into STEP's unanimous MVP season, and the surprise were still coming. Defenses didn't know what to do with him, and the wins were piling up. Entering April of that season, the Warriors were sixty eight and seven. That meant they could afford to lose two of the final seven games and still break the Chicago Bulls record of seventy two and ten. That seemed like a guarantee. This team hadn't lost more than two games in any month of the season. Surely going five and
two would be a cakewalk to end it. Not so fast. On April first, the Warriors, in what seemed like a prank, suffered their first home loss of the season to the Boston Celtics. It was April and Golden State had been undefeated at.
Home, no home losses this season. Golden State's gonna need a miracle to keep that. Going down three to eight point three to go, it is living stint to trigger two players down, no timeouts, has to get it in three at the top, to Curry.
Step fix free for the time to go, Timpson to barn stepp back free for the time. And the Boston Celtics have stopped the record run at home of the Golden State Warriors.
Then, after a recovery win against the Blazers, the Warriors lost another home game, this one feeling even more like a joke because it was to the lowly Minnesota Timberwolves behind a career best thirty five points from Shabbaz Mohammad, Remember him, It's okay if you don't.
Bosma, I mean ol has fed off fire. He has thirty ports.
That meant Golden State needed to win its final four games to break the record. For context, seventy to ten is one of those sports numbers that people just knew, especially NBA fans. It was Michael Jordan's nineteen ninety six Bulls team, the first full season after he came back from retirement. They went on to dominate the postseason and were widely considered the best team ever.
By five lighty shirts are trampis show that choke.
Before it six year as like a three bust products, eighty.
Shot shot, bar shoring wild one day shot.
Nike even released a seventy too to ten pair of Jordan eleven's that were all the rage I had a pair, truly cementing that season as one that will live in the minds of basketball fans forever.
And the first time in the history of the NBA that one player has won the regular season Most Valuable Player, All Star, Most Valuable Flier, and NBA Finals, a tremendous accomplishment by Michael Jordan.
So for the Warriors to best that, it would not only mean they'd be in the conversation at the best team ever, but it would mean anything short of a championship. Would be wildly disappointed that come playoffs, everyone's record starts O. And oh, so, what does the regular season wins record really mean if it didn't get you any extra advantages
in the postseason. Yes, the Spurs were giving chase and finished with sixty seven wins, but there was still a six game gap between the two teams at season's end. In fact, when the Spurs and Warriors played on April tenth, the game was meaningless in the standings and only mattered because the Warriors were chasing that record. In the second to last game of the season, the Warriors needed overtime to beat a thunder team that sat both Kevin Durant
and Russell Westbrook. So the road to seventy three wins most turbulent at the end when the games didn't actually mean that much. In the regular season finale, Golden State faced a Memphis team that still had something to play for, jockeying for playoff position with the Rockets and Mavericks. The game was such a big deal as they chased the record. ESPN broadcast the game simultaneous to Kobe Bryant's final game
on ESPN two. The Warriors looked like they'd coast to the record win, going up by fourteen points in the first quarter, So most of the viewing audience stuck with the Kobe game after that, and those folks were rewarded by watching Kobe drop sixty in his final game.
Well, Kobe, give them one last gamer. Bryant ti the move with the jumper.
Ye I have sneakers for that game also. But the greater historical accomplishment was happening in Golden State. The Warriors, behind a player who'd soon be named the first unanimous MVP, would finish the best regular season in NBA history.
That's official number seventy three.
The greatness regular season.
In NBA history now belongs to the twenty sixteen gold and State Warriors.
Steph talked with Doris Burke on the court after the game.
What kind of.
Character has been required from your guys in the pursuit of this historic marks?
That's everything for us. We have There's so many guys that sacrifice that. Everybody has a role in this team, and you can say they come in every night with that focus of playing a run the best of ability and just knowing that's gonna be the best way for rest of win games. So practice days, travel days, Dana days fifty all being locked in and tider together, that's gonna take me.
Yeah, in what way did the pursuit of this mark help you? And what will ultimately be your goal, which is a championship? How did this pursuit help that?
I mean, it just keeps us focus down the stretch. We don't have any room for er. You know, we're getting everything's best shot, and for us to keep that playoff kind of mentality and that playoff focus for our ultimate goals, obvious championship. These last two weeks have been mentally and physical challenges, So I think it's made us better and we'll be fresh with this wecaus.
At the time, no one would publicly question the decision to attempt to set the record despite not needing it to claim the number one overall seat. That's probably because at the time no one could envision this Warrior's team losing in the postseason. But in the Warriors' locker room, there were private discussions about how to approach the final few games. Andrew Boget sounds regretful when he talks about this team decision, the.
Plays in that locker room that wanted to go for seventy three and nine. There were plays that will like, let's just be healthy, and I get it, like we're going to create history seventy three and nine. But the argument from the guys that were like let's just be healthy is seventy three and nine doesn't mean I don't win the championship. So we as a group, the majority, were like, Okay, let's just we're going to roll the
dice and go for it. We probably could have risted guys towards the end of that season, made sure that we're fine for the playoffs. So whatever is in the playoffs, we'll go guys banged up.
Right, Injuries can happen in the postseason also, and one injury in particular did happen in these twenty sixteen playoffs. Steph Curry didn't suffer the most serious of setbacks, but it was easily the most significant of this postseason, and frankly, it probably would have happened even if the Warriors had rested Steph down the stretch of the regular season. In the first round against the Rockets. Just before halftime of
Game four, Golden State had its worst scare possible. Curry had already missed the previous two games of this series with a sprained ankle he suffered in Game one, and he wasn't playing like his usual As the final seconds were ticking off the second quarter clock and Trevor Ariza was dribbling up the floor for one last shot, James Harden and Dinazis Mantiunis clipped feet as they were heading up court. That sent Mantiunis sliding on his back for about ten feet, leaving a streak of sweat on the
floor behind him. As Curry was trying to get in defensive position in front of Arisa, he slid on that fresh Montiuna sweat, sending his feet spraying in opposite directions. The inside of Curry's right knee hit the court and he immediately grabbed at it, writhing in pain. As the halftime buzzer sounded, he not up.
Yet, still time remaining, Orisa trying to find some room.
Curry falls down and grabs his right leg.
Curry asking for help to get up.
He fell awkwardly and immediately grabbed his right leg and you see him hobbling.
Right now, Curry suffered that great one mcl spring on April twenty four. He didn't play again until May ninth, and probably would have sat out longer if it was the regular season. Now, Steph did have forty points off the bench in that comeback game, leading the Warriors to an overtime win and hitting the crowd with an I'm back after one of his five May threes.
Warriors could add to their lead.
Now Curry left wide open right between the eyes and then on the bench and details the fans I am back. I am back for he is in a big way too.
But for the rest of these playoffs, the playoffs where Golden State needed a championship to complete a dream season, Curry would look slightly off. Steph would need his splash brother to step up. After the break we learn how Game six, Clay was born. Steph Curry would hit five threes to close out the Blazers in five games and
reach the conference finals. But against the Thunder step would have two of his worst playoff games, Games one and four, and the record setting Warriors suddenly found themselves down three games to one to Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
That is the first time first season a Warrior for them, after having the possible seven FIA Hive Thunder or conference last seasons under the eight finals that they lost showing it all at out there flashing Game five about a possible close out so nice.
The next few games would spark discussion around Curry. Was he actually physically limited by the knee injury or was a nation full of Steph Curry fans creating excuses for a player who we wanted to see succeed. In the Game one loss at home, Steph shot forty percent with seven turnovers. In a crucial Game four, he shot it even worse, for just nineteen points with six turnovers. Whether or not Curry was physically capable of carrying Golden State was unclear. What was clear he wouldn't have to do
it alone. The Warriors won Game five with the Splash Brothers combining for fifty eight. Then in Game six, Clay Thompson managed to take all the attention away from Steph's knee with a season saving Game six performance that earned him the simple but fitting nickname Game six Clay.
Eight point lead for a fog.
Chris Thompson a.
Just checked by it pops out of.
Play now roll those fed a final twelve at of the season.
Right Mada.
Top shot a rate fall of three top way.
Topsho Roveros has three quarter by off reapond the times made.
In what was his signature playoff game in a career filled with them, Thompson scored nineteen of his forty one points in the fourth quarter. It was a fourth quarter that began with the Warriors trailing by eighth and their season on the brink.
Over Give him alive for up Topson, time of shooting, water shot, fight play Chompson.
He is putting off a top difficult three point shot exhibition.
That's all the heart and will. He's challenging itself. He doesn't want to go home unless it's.
The play game seven.
The fourth quarter started with three threes from Clay to keep his team close. After Steph played his part and tied the game at ninety nine with his sixth and final three of the game, Thompson would hit his eleventh three moments later, giving the Warriors the lead for good. Then Clay hit two free throws to close out the game and send the series to a game seven. In open.
Again.
It was Equidado Thompson fires for three, Yes, Golden State one three.
The Warriors went on to win a nervy game seven behind thirty six from Steph and another six threes from Clay, reaching their second straight NBA Finals. They'd prepare to face Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers again.
Right, we'll cut it out, Lash, We'll shall here.
Oh Colorida, Lania sto coming over the tenth two out of two hundred twenty three to win a Rush threw twel We were getting still walk now.
Had the Thunder went on to win that Western Conference finals, a matchup between Kevin Durant and Lebron James would have been a welcome sight for the NBA. Durant had been trying to reach James's level of winning, and it would have been his second chance at Lebron in the finals, having lost to the Miami Heat in twenty twelve. But there was something about a rematch between Lebron and Steph that felt like it was the best possible option, even
if they had just based off the previous year. Deep down, it was only right there we got an opportunity to play Colden State after lap and last year me personally, I wanted to see Gold State again the force of James and the Big three Caves versus the grace of the Splash Brothers, or simply could Lebron v. Kerry be the modern day Magic b Birth. It would be a matchup that would spoil there happen for four straight fights. But NBA fans weren't tired of this matchup just yet.
Mike Breen called all of those fins and he certainly didn't mind the rematch.
And you can't.
You can't think that way because every season is so different, and just from the standpoint, if they brought back the exact same rosters the next season, it's so different. Then you throw in injuries, you throw in contract situations, and can you stay together, So there's no guarantee even if you're the best team by far, even if you come back home the next year, there's so many things that can go differently, and that's the hard way to predict, both with those two teams, and probably the fans of
twenty eight other franchises will completely disagree with me. Both with those two teams. If it did happen, you knew you had something special because not only were they great teams, but you're looking at two of the greatest players to ever play at their particular positions and overall in the NBA, and the fact that it could lead to a rivalry and one of them is going for a dynasty. It's the stuff that makes history and what makes the game so great.
The problem for the Warriors at the moment was health. Curry's injuries were already noted, but there was another key thing the last year's Finals MVP that was also working through some knack and pink. It was exactly the vision Boge didn't want to see after his team made the choice to go for seventy three wins.
Andre Udala was dealing with a bunch of stuff. Steph was dealing with stuff. The Goodala thing was big because he was the guy that limited Lebrondi before. He's back couldn't moved. He's back was meant up the whole final series. We start well, we blow him out in the first two games. It's obviously three to one, and then then the Draymond thing happens.
Ah, Yes, the Draymond thing. The Golden State Warriors had the most versatile defender in the Lee League and Draymond Green.
If they had one of the best communicators in the league in Draymond Green, they have the perfect compliment to the Splash Brothers and Draymond, But they also have one of the louder voices in NBA history, one of the most demonstrative players in NBA history, and a player who often needs to play with unbridled emotion just to get the best out of himself, especially in the biggest games.
In Game four of the twenty sixteen Finals, with his team potentially on the verge of winning a second straight championship and after the record setting regular season preparing to hold the fictional but meaningful title of best team ever Green, lets some of those qualities get the worst of them, and with one angry swipe of an arm, he changed the course.
At sports history, greated James, joying at each other, We'll play the tenures like a dollar, the full off that goal and a couple of fouls gonna be called on.
The next dub dynasty. I wanted to see it, man, I wanted to see the royal rumble. And I was so excited when we got eight in the Finals of twenty sixteen, because that's what it felt like when we were going over the Bay Bridge.
I just remember being on the back of the bus with all our guys and you know, Lebron speaking that you know this, it's already written. Man.
They opened up the door sometimes that that anger comes out, and in some ways we're similar in that regula.
You just knew that that was one of the most spectacular plays in the heat of the moment, at the most critical moment that I've ever seen.
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