The Warriors have done everything a team can do to assert its dominance this season. Golden State has smoked its top challengers, swept the other elites and broken records. What the Warriors do best, however, is meet a challenger on their terms. The Thunder, with their two-headed dragon of defiance, proved such an opponent on Saturday night.
Behold Stephen Curry and the Warriors in their purest form
Victory and history aren’t all the Warriors are seeking to achieve. Something above this plane of existence is at stake here.
And Stephen Curry and his Warriors relished in chopping off their heads.
It's almost as if the Warriors want to see how close to defeat they can get before charging back to victory. The Thunder led by 12 in the fourth, with Kevin Durant radiating heat and the non-Steph Warriors cold from outside. Then Curry cooked, OKC danced with the ghost of Scott Brooks' stagnant prevent offense and Golden State made the most of a few fortunate bounces.
A column on the NBA. 2/25: NBA success is all about expectations 2/22: What's left to decide in regular season? 2/19: Daryl Morey's plan backfired. What now? 2/18: The Kings' bizarre draft pick situation 2/17: Do Wade, Whiteside fit in Miami future? 2/13: Never give up on the Dunk Contest 2/9: The Kings were close to another firing 2/8: Trading Blake Griffin would be stupid 2/7: The Thunder aren't afraid of anyone It was all so Warriors. It could have been scripted except that Curry and the Warriors are bending the limits of believability. Kids who imagine themselves heroes on the blacktop, counting down the seconds of an invented championship game and hitting the most incredible shots over invisible defenders -- those kids think this is all a bit too on the nose.
To review: With Golden State reeling late in the fourth, Steph hit two 26-footers off the dribble to light a fire under his team. Klay Thompson shook off the cobwebs to nail his first three of the game. With two seconds left and the Thunder up two, Durant loses the ball under pressure then fouls Andre Iguodala on a desperate jumper just before time expires. Iguodala, a poor shooter, nails both free throws. This is so, so Warriors.
But nothing will ever be quite as Warriors as what Steph did at the end of overtime. Tied game, six seconds left. Time enough for a shot to make the universe convulse in disbelief.
This is pure, unadulterated adrenaline in video form. Watching it 10 hours later still fills one with nervous energy. But that’s the Warriors, isn’t it? A strutting, showy power surge waiting to happen. Every critique of Steph -- that he takes shots that’d get 99 percent of the NBA benched, that he’s too cocky, that he’s making functionally bad decisions that happen to work out every single time -- it’s all right here in this shot.
The Warriors came back to tie a game at the end of a seven-game road trip against a great opponent with six seconds left in overtime, and Wardell Stephen Curry leaves a timeout on the table, pulls up from 38 feet and 5 inches with three seconds left and drills the game-winner. If you want to write a premature history of the greatest team in basketball history, just stick that Vine on a DVD, slide it inside an empty book and call it a day. It’s all you need to understand these Warriors and this player.
Many have rued the dampening effect the Warriors’ historic excellence has had on the season writ large. It’s obvious the Warriors are the prohibitive favorites to win the title, and setting a new wins record is starting to look like a foregone conclusion. These dudes have already clinched a playoff spot. (It’s February.) Why bother investing in the remainder of the NBA season when the conclusion is seemingly predestined?
Because victory and history aren’t all the Warriors are seeking to achieve. Something above this plane of existence is at stake here. Steph is a basketball god in the flesh, the Warriors are his disciples, and if you don’t believe in their power after what happened Saturday, nothing can convince you.
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SB Nation Presents: Stephen Curry is literally a video game
