NBA Playoffs: Warriors top Thunder to advance to finals vs. Cavaliers

Draymond Green and Steven Adams have history. Green hit Adams with a knee to the groin in Game 2 and followed it with an even more pronounced kick below the belt in Game 3. For his part, Adams said Green has “peaked with annoyingness.“ The Western Conference Finals couldn’t end without one more chapter in our new favorite NBA rivalry.

Green and Adams got tangled up late in the second quarter. Green hit the floor hard (possibly with his head), but it looks like he might have grabbed Adams’ arm and pulled him down. The Golden State crowd, meanwhile, was chanting for an Adams ejection.

There’s having faith in your teammates, then there is breaking into some sort of crane walk thing to celebrate a made shot before your teammate appears to have even decided to shoot the ball.

Steph Curry had Russell Westbrook all over him, but Leandro Barbosa knew exactly what he was going to do and he knew it was going to work. Barbosa was right.

If Kevin Durant’s Thunder career is really possibly going to end this year as he reaches free agency, one can hardly think of a better way to finish than in a Game 7 war with the new hottest thing in the NBA, with a trip to the Finals on the line.

Durant’s eight years in Oklahoma City (he spent one in Seattle) have been fraught with supreme excellence and bittersweet finishes. Rare has been the time OKC fell short without an extraordinary excuse: injuries, usually. The only rationale this time around, should the Thunder lose Monday in Game 7 against the Warriors, would be that they were not good enough, just as was the case in the 2012 NBA Finals.