Golden State have a shot at their fourth championship in less than a decade. It’s easy to forget they were the worst team in the NBA just two seasons ago With their 120-110 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night, the Golden State Warriors clinched the Western Conference championship and booked a sixth NBA finals appearance in the last eight years. History will remember this season as a continuation of the Golden State dynasty, especially if they go on to claim their fourth NBA title in less than a decade. But the Warriors have been through a lot in the 1,079 days since their last finals appearance. Two-time finals MVP Kevin Durant left. Klay Thompson was sidelined for two and a half years with injuries. Hand surgery meant Steph Curry missed all but five games of the 2019-20 season, in which Golden State finished with the worst record in the NBA. They were only marginally better the season after, creeping into the inaugural postseason play-in tournament, where they were dumped out by a young Memphis Grizzlies team. The story of the Warriors’ 2022 finals run has not been one of a simple continuation of previous success. It has been a remarkable feat of regeneration and rejuvenation.
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Golden State began this season with the clear intent to end their two-year playoff drought. They posted a league-best 17-3 record through the first 20 games, powered by the MVP-level form of Curry. The eight-time All-Star, who turned 34 in March, was the NBA’s leading scorer through that stretch, averaging 28.6 points per game while shooting 42.3% from three-point range. Not that this is a one-man team. The Warriors’ resurgence has been founded on typically stout defense. Steve Kerr has alternated schemes to keep opponents unsettled, as well as adopting an intuitive approach to pick-and-roll defense, utilising hedges and drops to force opponents into poor shots. Draymond Green was a leading candidate for Defensive Player of the Year award before a two-month injury absence and Golden State finished the regular season with the NBA’s best defensive rating (106.9), equalled only by the Celtics, who may well join them in the finals. The Warriors’ return to the summit was not accomplished off the backs of their veteran stars Curry and Green alone, though. Gary Payton II, the son of a former Defensive Player of the Year, had experienced a nomadic career before signing with Golden State last year. The 29-year-old’s journey has included spells at G-League teams such as the Wisconsin Herd and Capital City Go-Go, never holding down regular minutes in any one destination. But he has found a home at Chase Center. Payton has emerged as an elite one-on-one defender and leads the Warriors in steals per game this season (1.4) despite only averaging 17.6 minute per appearance. Had it not been for a fractured left elbow suffered in the previous round against Memphis, he would likely have been deployed to guard Luka Doncic in the Conference finals. On offense, Jordan Poole has been a revelation. The 28th pick of the 2019 draft was splitting his time between the Warriors and their G League affiliate, the Santa Cruz Warriors, just last season. In 2021-22, he became a Most Improved Player candidate, playing 30 minutes per game and averaging 18.5 points and four assists, acting as an invaluable bench scorer and Curry stand-in. Still, the regular season wasn’t all smooth sailing. Curry’s initial form tailed off as he finished with the lowest three-point percentage (38%) of any full season in his career and his lowest scoring average (25.5 points per game) since 2016-2017. Thompson returned mid-season from a two-and-a-half-year layoff but hasn’t yet looked the All-Star of old. Injuries appear to have hampered the athleticism that once made him one of the league’s best wing defenders and, like Curry, he shot under 40% from three for the first time. Injuries to Green and Curry saw the Warriors leapfrogged for the West’s second seed by the Grizzlies towards the end of the season. But, looking back now, Curry’s absence from the final 12 games of the season might have been a blessing in disguise. Poole further blossomed in his place and the two-time MVP returned refreshed in time for the playoffs, first acting as superstar sixth man against Denver in the first round and then resuming his starting role.
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