The Golden State Warriors made history as they became one of the most special teams in the NBA pantheon reaching six finals in eight years. The core of Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson has been the Warriors’ nucleus the last 10 years.
“It’s pretty amazing. It’s so difficult to get to the Finals,” Steve Kerr said. “An NBA season is such a marathon, to get through the 82, to get through three rounds of the Playoffs, beating the best teams in the league to get there, it’s frankly exhausting.”
“It’s stressful, emotional, physically tiring, all of that stuff.”
Kerr knows a thing or two about being competitive at the highest level as a player, and the last seven years as head coach of the Golden State Warriors. Klay Thompson, who scored 32 points in the closeout Game 5 vs Dallas, talked about Kerr.
“I’m so grateful to play for a coach like Steve. He’s a real player’s coach. He’s just an incredible person,” Thompson said in the postgame presser.
Over the past two years, everything came crashing down for the Warriors. Just two seasons ago, Golden State had the worst record in the NBA. Last year, Klay Thompson was still recovering from a long-term injury—his second consecutive after the 2019 NBA Finals.
“For our team, our guys, especially the core group, Dray and Steph, Klay, Loon, Andre, to be part of that six times in eight years, I don’t even know what to say. It just takes an enormous amount of skill and determination and work,” Kerr said.
“I couldn’t be prouder of our guys.”
Curry was named the MVP of the Western Conference Finals averaging 23.8 points, 7.4 assists and 6.6 rebounds. The Dubs superstar didn’t have the best performance (15 pts, 5-17 FG) in Gm5, but Thompson and Green picked up the slack in the scoring department.
“This one is very sweet just because of where we were in 2019. Obviously Klay, KD going down during that Playoff run, being so close to winning three in a row. Again, the adversity that you hit over the last two years.”
“We never lost the faith, but you understand how hard of a process it was going to be to climb the mountain again. And to do it with this team”
The Warriors will host the winner of the Eastern Conference finals between Boston and Miami on June 2 in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
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