HOUSTON -- Inside the Golden State Warriors' locker room in the immediate aftermath of their series-clinching Game 6 victory over the Houston Rockets, the feeling was a little bit different than you'd expect. "YEAH!" shouted Draymond Green as he practically bounced into the locker room, "HEY, NOW!" The mood was more jubilant, more excited, more like this team had just won a championship instead of this three-time champion simply advancing to one more Western Conference finals. "Get me off the court again, boy!" Stephen Curry yelled out as he walked into the locker room, then he hopped into Green's arms.
"We were actually talking about it in there -- it's one of most satisfying victories we've had during this run," head coach Steve Kerr said minutes after the buzzer sounded on their 118-113 victory. "These guys are just amazing. Won a lot of big games. This is definitely one of the most satisfying we've had."
Satisfying because the Warriors were without Kevin Durant. Up until his scary-looking injury in Game 5 -- it was immediately diagnosed on Twitter as a torn Achilles before an actual doctor diagnosed it as a calf strain -- Durant had been the best player in the playoffs. He'd scored at will and been a force on the defensive end. In the first playoffs since 2005 that didn't feature LeBron James, Durant was staking his claim that he is now the best basketball player in the world. And now the Warriors had to go on without him, and without DeMarcus Cousins, who was injured the series before.
The Warriors didn't want your pity. They know they're still an immensely talented team, even with those two All-Stars sidelined. But they also know they had been taken to the brink a season ago by these Houston Rockets, and now they were in a very precarious position.
From the moment that Durant pulled up lame in Game 5, the Warriors were in trouble. They were up against it. All season long, the narrative about the Warriors was that, sure, they had five All-Stars, and incredibly talented top-line players -- but they did not have depth. With Durant joining Cousins on the injury report, that depth was completely decimated. When Curry and Draymond Green both got into foul trouble in the first half of Game 6, well, it was five-alarm fire time for the Warriors.
And for the Rockets, it was an opportunity they'd been waiting for. General manager Daryl Morey has been open about being "obsessed" with beating the Warriors. This Rockets team was built for that purpose. They missed an opportunity in Game 5 when the Warriors looked shook in the minutes after Durant's injury. James Harden took only three shots in the entire fourth quarter, and the Rockets blew the opportunity. But going into Game 6, the Rockets' championship window was wide, wide open. They knew it.
And so did the Warriors.
It took all the Warriors had. Klay Thompson kept them in the game in the first half. He came out firing, and he finished the game with 27 points ("It's like he's in the park, putting up shots on a chain-link net," Steph Curry said. "I don't know if he even feels pressure. He's just out there hooping."). Andre Iguodala was an absolute beast. He hit five 3-pointers -- his first time hitting five or more 3s in a game since 2013 -- en route to a fantastic two-way game, finishing with 17 points and five steals ("It's like when your kids are at home and there's a babysitter there," Kerr said. "That's Andre. You just feel more comfortable knowing there's an adult out there, keep everybody settled down."). The much-criticized bench came up huge: 14 points from Kevon Looney, 11 points from a suddenly spry Shaun Livingston, valuable minutes from Jordan Bell, Jonas Jerebko and Quinn Cook. Draymond Green was Draymond Green, the energetic connective tissue that holds these Warriors together.
But Friday night's win was about the player who had been the soul of this five-year Warriors dynasty: Steph Curry. Curry's first-half struggles underscored just how big of a pickle the Warriors found themselves in. Without Durant, without Cousins, without any positive contributions from Curry, it was something of a miracle that the Warriors were tied at half -- or perhaps it was just one more missed opportunity from the Rockets. Then, suddenly, Steph -- wearing an old pair of 2015 Curry 1 shoes that he brought "out of the garage" for this game -- was 2015 Steph again. With four minutes left in the third quarter, he'd scored three points. By the time the buzzer sounded, Steph had a team-high 33 points -- 30 of those coming in the final 16 minutes of the game.
"They're giants," Kerr said. "They're champions. These guys are a historically good basketball team. You don't do this, you don't do what these guys have done without an incredible combination of talent and character. Steph epitomized that tonight. Zero points at halftime, three fouls, complete non-factor in the game. And then completely took over the game on a night when everything was going wrong. He found a way to turn it around."
It was the reaction of this team in the moments after this victory that symbolized just how big of a win this was for them. Especially considering the circumstances.
"This is the best victory I've been a part of as a Golden State Warrior," Andrew Bogut told reporters.
"It's up there," Thompson said. "It's hard to digest right now, just because it's so fresh, and so many emotions went through that tonight. It just feels good to get this win, man."
"This one felt good," said Green. "I'm not going to sit here and sugarcoat it. I mean, yeah, we're used to winning, but this one felt amazing."
I asked Green: Considering the circumstances -- the injuries, the drama around this season, the fact this was a Rockets team that took the Warriors to the brink a year ago, and the fact that it's really, really hard to win three in a row -- where did this win rank during the Warriors reign atop the NBA?
He pondered the question for a moment. There have been plenty of great playoff wins. There was the overtime game in Portland in 2016, when Curry came back from injury to score 40 points, 17 of those in the extra period. There was Game 3 in Cleveland last year, when Durant was hitting bombs from all over the court en route to 43 points. Winning the Finals? Yeah. That's always great.
But there was certainly something very, very special -- and very personal -- about Friday night's win.
"This one feels good," Green said. "Just cause all circumstances going into it. Just a team that's said for years, 'We're built to beat them.' Then Kevin goes down and everyone's not giving us a chance. I heard (in Game 6) we were the biggest underdog in the Steve Kerr era. You take all those things into account, this one feels amazing. It felt good."
He paused.
"But we got a lot more work to do."
They do. After Friday night's outpouring of emotion came the realization that the Warriors were only halfway to their goal. There's still the conference finals, and, if they win that, the Finals. Kerr said he planned to give the players the weekend off. On Sunday, they'll find out who they'll play in the conference finals: The Portland Trail Blazers or the Denver Nuggets. On Monday, it's back to work.
