HOUSTON – The would-be dynasty was almost dead.
The Golden State Warriors, this super team that stockpiled so much talent that winning every title from now until forever became the unwelcome expectation, was staring at a 15-point hole in the second quarter of Game 7 of the Western Conference finals against the hungry Houston Rockets on Monday night. Klay Thompson missed two free throws – as good a sign as any that something was awry.
Then Draymond Green nabbed the offensive rebound and fired a crosscourt pass to Kevin Durant, only to see James Harden jump the lane for the steal and head the other way for a dunk. Green was furious that Durant hadn’t come to meet the ball. The Toyota Center was rocking, and the mighty Warriors were cracking.
“That's a point where you can have guys doing a lot of finger pointing and blaming and getting on their feelings,” Warriors point guard Steph Curry would later say. “But there was a moment during that timeout after Coach (Steve Kerr) called it, where it was just really productive. Everybody was like ‘Let's just move on. Get it together, find a way to get through this little rough patch and just find ourselves.’ It just took a while.
“So I think that moment it could have splintered, to be honest. It could have been a moment where guys went their separate ways. But I think the way that we fought all year and the way that this team is built with the chemistry we have, that got us through that little rough patch. I think we used that to our advantage.”
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If the Warriors didn’t save their season, downing the Rockets 101-92 to earn a fourth consecutive trip to the NBA Finals to face the Cleveland Cavaliers, then this just might have been the summer of reckoning. Such is life when you fall short of stated goals, especially when you have an owner like Joe Lacob who is among the most aggressive in all of pro sports.
Would it change the way they see extension talks with Thompson that are forthcoming in July? Might they consider trading Green if the blame game had spilled over into the summer? Would they push hard to have a different set of stars, perhaps trying to pry Anthony Davis away from the New Orleans Pelicans by offering a big name in return? By answering Houston’s call, with Curry and Durant putting on a show in the second half while the Chris Paul-less Rockets faded late, they kept all the hypotheticals at bay.
“I was very stressed out, I have to admit,” Lacob told USA TODAY Sports afterward. “Sitting next to (general manager) Bob (Myers) in the second half, and we’re both having our own kind of heart attacks. But you know, this team is incredibly resilient, and they just find a way. They’re just amazing players, and great shooters, and they did it.
“I haven’t had a very stressful year, even though they haven’t played all that consistent, because I’ve been through this. But not anything quite like this. Game Seven, on the road, that was the pressure part of it all.”
Yet when it comes to the men who actually built this roster, it didn’t take this kind of challenge for them to realize the fragile nature of their championship formula. All season long, Lacob and Myers had watched and wondered what the Warriors’ struggles truly meant. The air of invincibility was gone, with Golden State losing the grip on that No. 1 seed and ultimately setting the stage for this road Game 7.
Curry’s ankle and knee injuries played a major part in their struggles. But that lackluster final stretch – 10 losses in 17 games to finish 58-24 – was puzzling to everyone. Some saw it as mental and physical fatigue, with Curry, Thompson and Green having spent the past three years playing from October to June. Others wondered if it was complacency.
All those same questions popped up again in the first half, when the Rockets were beating the Warriors to every loose ball and Golden State played with a level of sloppiness that belied the high stakes. But Myers, the former agent who joined the Warriors’ front office in 2011, kept preaching faith as they entered halftime down 54-43.
“Until they give me or anybody else reason to not trust them, you have to believe, even though this has been tough,” Myers told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s been a tougher road (this season), whether it’s been through injury, fatigue, mental fatigue after four years of it. I see in these situation, Houston could have easily won this too.
“Luckily in the second half, we didn’t go there. We bend, but we don’t break. The roster bends. It does. You saw it during the year. We were bending in the last month of the season to the degree where we’re getting blown out every other game. That’s not a healthy way to approach the playoffs. You can say whatever you want. That’s my point, though. I never felt like we broke.”
A would-be dynasty lives on – even if they won’t call it one yet.
“I’ve never used the word dynasty,” Myers said. “I’ve never felt that, because if you’re in this, (you know) like everything’s fragile. Even though some may not see our team as fragile, but it is. It’s people. It’s a group of 12, 15, 25 people trying to stay together with a microscope on them, and it’s hard. So I always have felt vulnerable, even though people may not believe that.
“We didn’t get a No. 1 seed. We played a team that was as driven as any team we’ve ever played to win. So how I get through it is I remember that these are people. These aren’t robots. These aren’t machines. They go up. They go down. They get tired. And you try to empathize with the effort they’re giving. And even though we make mistakes, I think our players do approach it with the right mind.”
Follow USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick on Twitter.
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