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Stephen Curry celebrates with Draymond Green during the Warriors' Game 5 victory Sunday night in Oakland.Photo: Getty Images
CLEVELAND – Now comes the hard part for the Golden State Warriors.
Closing out the Finals.
Think defending LeBron James is difficult? Believe turning the series around by playing a bunch of Smurfs was hard? Piece of cake, walk in the park compared to getting win No. 4 in a Finals.
“The closeout game is always the hardest game in every series, but particularly in the Finals,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr, whose team moved to the brink of jubilation and a guaranteed trip to the White House by claiming a 3-2 Finals lead Sunday with a 104-91 victory that included Stephen Curry scoring 17 of his 37 points in the fourth quarter.
So why is a closeout game the toughest, other than the fact you face an opponent who likely would bite you to death if necessary, just to survive one more day to try the biting tactic all over again?
“It just is. There is a lot of emotion,” said Kerr, a five-time champion as a player with the Bulls (three) and Spurs (two). “You’re right there on the cusp of something … and in this case we’ll be on the road against a great team. It’s going to be hard. It’s just the way it is.”
The Warriors may draw some comfort from their Game 4 win in Cleveland.
“It’s a good feeling to get a win in Cleveland and understand we can get it done and how we need to get it done,” said Curry, who needed an IV hookup to fight dehydration after his stunning Game 5. “So ready for the opportunity.”
An ongoing series theme has been reducing the Finals’ climate to a street fight. J.R. Smith, who again delivered “Wow, he helps” moments along with “Wow, he hurts” moments in the same game, vowed the Cavs will hold nothing back.
“We have to come out swinging. That’s the only thing we can do,” said the ex-Knick, who looked like a lifesaver in the first half Sunday when he scored 14 points then looked like a lead vest in the second half when he scored zero. “We’re in a dogfight and our backs are against the wall. The only way we will make it out is to fight.”
Fighting has been the main topic for the Warriors’ Draymond Green, who again proclaimed anger has fueled him throughout the series.
Green expressed his anger after Game 3, but he was most angry with himself for a level of play he labeled “pathetic.” So he vowed to improve, and has been a real staple in the Warriors’ success in Games 4 and 5.
“I was upset … because in playing with Coach [Tom] Izzo [at Michigan State], one thing he always taught me was if you’re going to be a leader, you sometimes have to take the blame on yourself,” Green said. “And if you’re going to call somebody out, you got to call yourself out, too.
“I know I was pathetic in the first three games, yet I also knew that there were some things that a lot of guys on our team needed to do better — and that was fight. But I wasn’t bringing any fight to the game. How could I call anybody else on our team out and I wasn’t bringing any fight?”
Life is full of baffling conundrums.
“We were completely getting outworked, out-hustled, out-dogged, however you want to put it,” Green said. “That can’t happen.”
History favors the Warriors: 20 of 28 previous Finals that were tied 2-2 were won by the team that took Game 5. But history isn’t worth an illegal defense call in games.
“We don’t want them celebrating at all, no matter if it’s on our home floor or their home floor,” James said. “We have to understand why we weren’t good in Game 4 [loss at home]. We had a lack of energy. We had a lack of effort. … We can’t repeat that or they’ll raise the trophy for sure.”
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