Three years later, Golden State returns to the NBA finals: the Warriors, carried by Klay Thompson as in its finest hours, won (120-110) a fourth success against the Mavericks, despite the late start of Luka Doncic, Thursday in the playoffs.
"It's an incredible sense of accomplishment for our group," said Steve Kerr, coach of Golden State, both emotional and angry Tuesday night, after the shooting at a school in Texas that killed 21 people. , including 19 children.
“It just takes an enormous amount of skill, determination and hard work.
I couldn't be more proud of our guys.
The last two years have been difficult, with injuries, the worst record in the league in 2019-2020… Last season was like we spent it trying to get back on track,” he continues. .
imagine not loving playoff basketball pic.twitter.com/0jAzs0rijM
— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) May 27, 2022
After two seasons of brooding, treating injuries, but also rebuilding a competitive workforce, the Californian franchise, which dominated the championship in the second half of the previous decade, is making a tremendous comeback.
She will play her sixth final in eight years.
Like Michael Jordan's Bulls in the 1990s, but each time with a champion ring on their finger (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998).
The Warriors were crowned in 2015, 2017, 2018 and defeated in 2016 then in 2019.
“A blessing to come back to our place”
Towel on his head and a smirk, Stephen Curry could just savor the moment while the last seconds passed, his gaze lost in this glorious past that he can once again touch with his finger.
“It's a blessing for us to come back to our place.
It's not the ultimate goal yet, but we have to celebrate this moment, after everything we've been through in the last three years,” said the point guard.
With Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, they will aim for a 4th title, from June 2, to continue a saga, which many believed stopped three years ago after the loss against Toronto and the dissolution of their "big 3" with the departure of Kevin Durant in Brooklyn.
It will be against Boston or Miami, still struggling in the Eastern Conference, the Celtics leading 3-2 with a sixth game already decisive at home on Friday.
Like revenge on fate, it was Thompson who led the way for his team to the final, he who had suffered the hell of a ruptured cruciate ligaments in his left knee during the fatal game number 6 against the Raptors in 2019, before undergoing a second one to the right Achilles tendon a year later.
If the Mavs were 25 units behind in the third quarter, they came back to minus 8 in this same period, thanks to the spectacular awakening of Luka Doncic, author of 15 points after having scored only 6 in the first period. .
"Luka Magic" (28 points, 9 rebounds 6 assists), on which all the Warriors defended fiercely, did his best in the last quarter, until he managed a tightrope walker's basket from behind the panel.
But it was not enough.