The Warriors dynasty could have come to an unceremonious, if not embarrasing end on Sunday.
It was not far-fetched. They lose to Sacramento after bungling a Game 6 close-out. Draymond Green opts out of his contract and signs elsewhere, like Portland. Joe Lacob is sick of paying outrageous tax penalties and doesn’t want to extend Klay Thompson. The whole thing splinters.
Stephen Curry had other plans.
With what might be his greatest single-game performance ever — and what is at least in the pantheon of his greatest games — given the stakes, Curry delayed all those questions.
He carried the Warriors in a way no one else can. 50 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 turnover.
No one in NBA history had scored 50 in a Game 7. No one but Curry.
No one has ever played the game the way Curry has. No one ever will again.
And no one has changed their body the way he has. Curry is 35 years old. Thirty. Five. He’s arguably playing the best basketball he ever has. He is certainly as well-rounded as he’s ever been in his career.
It was a performance that was aggressive from the start. Curry has a tendency to distribute and find his spots patiently.
On Sunday, it was obvious that was not going to be viable. Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins couldn’t hit a shot. They were a combined 9-of-35 from the field, 3-of-15 from deep and 12-of-18 at the free throw line. Jordan Poole didn’t have it. Aside from Game 3, he hasn’t had it.
So, Curry did the only thing that made sense. He demolished the Kings with a patient, probing, exhausting approach.
Sacramento’s Malik Monk called the Warriors old. He wasn’t quite wrong. But Curry, at 35, might be the most well-conditioned player in the league, and he wore the Kings down.
What was astonishing about his performance was the persistence of it. He just kept driving, finding lanes, finishing just about every shot he took inside the arc. He was 20-of-38 from the field and 7-of-18 from deep.
Curry has often been levied with the accusation of “ruining the game” because young kids everywhere have tried to emulate him. You see a lot of bad basketball based on a misunderstanding of Curry’s excellence and the false notion that emulating him is something that can or should be done.
The entire league has fundamentally changed because of the way he, Thompson and the Warriors shoot 3-pointers.
But on Sunday it was the way he used his physicality, his ball-handling, his unparalleled touch and craft around the rim and knowledge of angles to make the Kings unable to stop him.
Everyone knew the Warriors were going to keep playing through him. Kevon Looney was the only other Warriors player to make more than 50 percent of his shots, and that was on five attempts.
And despite the obviousness of who was going to shoot, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Thompson and Wiggins were launching cement at the rim. He demolished the Kings to the point that he sat the final few minutes of the game. A 20-point victory, in Sacramento, for a team that was 11-32 on the road before Game 5.
As Draymond Green put it:
“He left no doubt. I think that’s a beautiful thing,” Green said. “To see a GOAT leave no doubt is absolutely incredible.”
He did it the way only he could, which, of course, means he talked some trash.
Every single time the camera cut to Curry in the second half, he was smiling. It was like he knew how every moment in that half was going to play out and how ruthlessly he was going to extract pain from the city of Sacramento.
He told them they weren’t ready. He pretended to light the beam. And he and the Warriors are still, despite early reports to the contrary, here.
Now, in a matchup that must have NBA commissioner Adam Silver absolutely giddy, they’ll host a red-hot Lakers team in what could well be the final Curry-LeBron playoff matchup we ever witness.
That’s the modern NBA, apparently. A sixth seed hosting a seventh seed. The bloodbath of the Western conference has quickly delineated the regular season, youth-heavy teams from the veteran-led squads that are built to try and win 16 games.
Golden State still believes they are one of those teams. With Curry still the most game-breaking, dream-crushing point guard the league has ever seen, that belief has some juice.