Klay Thompson drained the three-pointers, Draymond Green anchored the defense and even chipped in on the offensive end for a change, while Stephen Curry capped off an Most Valuable Player (MVP) performance as the Golden State trio on Thursday put the Warriors in position for another title after advancing to the NBA Finals with a 120-110 victory over the Dallas Mavericks.
“Like I’ve said over and over again, I’m going to keep saying it: No one has proven that they can move us off that spot,” Green said. “That’s the mindset we come into this thing with. We understand what it takes to win a championship.”
The triumvirate of Curry, Thompson and Green is in rarefied air in NBA lore as the core of a team who have made it to six NBA Finals in eight years.
Photo: Kelley L. Cox-USA TODAY
It is an accomplishment only the greatest groups have reached, with Bill Russell’s Celtics of the 1950s and 1960s, Magic Johnson’s Lakers in the 1980s and Michael Jordan’s Bulls of the 1990s doing it.
Now the Warriors hope to add a fourth title to the ones they captured in 2015, 2017 and 2018 when the Finals start on Thursday against either Boston or Miami. The Celtics were leading the series 3-2 heading into yesterday’s Game 6.
“We’re happy to be here, but it would help our legacy a lot if we completed the mission and won the whole thing,” Thompson said. “We can be happy tonight, and we will be, I’ll celebrate tonight, but tomorrow [Friday] when this Game 6 comes on, I’m turning the page and I’m scouting because we want to finish this thing off the right way.”
Photo: Kelley L. Cox-USA TODAY
The previous time the Warriors made it to the NBA Finals, they fell short, starting a two-year spiral filled with losing and injuries. Thompson tore his left anterior cruciate ligament during a season-ending Game 6 loss in the 2019 NBA Finals.
Kevin Durant tore his Achilles’ tendon earlier that series and then left for Brooklyn that summer, leading to the Warriors finishing an NBA-worst 15-50 in the shortened 2019-2020 season.
Thompson then tore his right Achilles’ tendon just before the start of the next season and the Warriors were unable to make it back to the playoffs, getting knocked out by the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-ins.
Photo: AFP
However, Thompson returned in January and the combination of the aging trio of stars with an infusion of youth from players such as Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole and others has Golden State back at the top of the league again.
“We never lost the faith, but you understand how hard of a process it was going to be to climb the mountain again,” Curry said. “I think internally we are all extremely proud of what it took to get back here. Yeah, it’s definitely sweet based on what we went through.”
Thompson led the way in the clinching Game 5 win of the Western Conference Finals over Dallas, making eight three-pointers for a record-setting fifth time in his playoff career and scoring 32 points.
Photo: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY
Green added 17 points, six rebounds and nine assists to go along with his usual defensive brilliance, while Curry had 15 points and nine assists as he was named series MVP.
It is a level of play that reminds coach Steve Kerr of the Bulls teams he played on with Jordan and Scottie Pippen who won so many titles in the 1990s.
“The common denominator is just talented players who are fierce competitors,” Kerr said. “Whether you talk about Michael and Scottie, Steph, Draymond, Klay, it takes a special kind of athlete to have both dynamics.”
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