With their 120-110 victory over the Dallas Mavericks Thursday night, the Golden State Warriors won the Western Conference championship and booked a sixth appearance in the NBA Finals in the past eight years. History will remember this season as a continuation of the Golden State dynasty, especially if they get their fourth NBA title in less than a decade.
But the Warriors have gone through a lot in the 1,079 days since their last appearance in the final.
Two-final MVP Kevin Durant left. Klay Thompson was out for two and a half years due to injury. Hand surgery meant Steph Curry missed every game minus five in the 2019-20 season, in which Golden State ended the NBA’s worst record. They were only slightly better the following season, entering the inaugural postseason tournament, where they were sent off by a young Memphis Grizzlies team.
The story of the Warriors ’2022 final has not been a mere continuation of previous success. It has been a remarkable feat of regeneration and rejuvenation.
Golden State started this season with the clear intention of ending the two-year playoff drought. They posted the best 17-3 record in the league during the first 20 games, driven by Curry’s MVP level form. The eight-time All-Star, who turned 34 in March, was the NBA’s all-time leading scorer during this stretch, averaging 28.6 points per game while shooting 42.3% from a distance. of three points.
It’s not that this is a one-man team. The resurgence of the Warriors has been based on a typically robust defense. Steve Kerr has alternated schemes to keep opponents restless, in addition to taking an intuitive approach to hitting and rolling defenses, using fences and falls to force opponents to shoot badly. Draymond Green was one of the top Defensive Player of the Year nominees before a two-month injury absence and Golden State finished the regular season with the NBA’s best defensive rating (106.9). matched only by the Celtics, who may join them in the season. finals.
However, the Warriors’ return to the top was not achieved behind their veteran stars Curry and Green.
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 on G-League teams such as Wisconsin Herd and Capital City Go-Go, without ever holding regular minutes at any destination. But he has found a home in the Chase Center. Payton has become an elite one-on-one defender and leads the Warriors in steals per game this season (1.4) even though he only averages 17.6 minutes per appearance. Had it not been for a fractured left elbow suffered in the previous round against Memphis, he would probably have been deployed to protect Luka Doncic in the Conference finals.
Draymond Green has once again been a crucial force in defense for the Warriors. Photography: Jeff Chiu / AP
In attack, Jordan Poole has been a revelation. The No. 28 pick in the 2019 draft split his time between the Warriors and his G League affiliate, the Santa Cruz Warriors, last season. In 2021-22, he became the candidate for the most improved player, playing 30 minutes per game and averaging 18.5 points and four assists, acting as an invaluable scorer on the bench and Curry’s substitute.
However, the regular season was not entirely quiet. Curry’s starting form shrank when he finished with the lowest three-point percentage (38%) of any full season of his career and the lowest average score (25.5 points per game) since 2016 -2017. Thompson returned mid-season after a two-and-a-half-year layoff, but he still didn’t look like the usual All-Star. Injuries seem to have hampered athletics which made him one of the best side defenders in the league and, like Curry, shot below 40% of three for the first time.
Injuries to Green and Curry saw the Warriors jump to the Grizzlies’ second winger in the Western Series toward the end of the season. But looking back now, Curry’s absence from the last 12 games of the season could have been a disguised blessing. Poole flourished even further in his place and the two-time MVP returned renewed in time for the playoffs, first as a sixth superstar against Denver in the first round and then resumed his starting role.
Andrew Wiggins’ second poster of these playoffs. Get Luka Doncic fiercer than Brandon Clarke. pic.twitter.com/lnEhlNUQzr
– Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) May 23, 2022
One of the main reasons for the improvement of the Warriors this year has been the appearance of Andrew Wiggins as a key collaborator. The former No. 1 overall pick was acquired by the Minnesota Timberwolves in a bid for D’Angelo Russell in 2020. His selection as an All-Star in February was perhaps more indicative of the lack of elite strikers in the west with the LA Clippers duo. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George out, but Wiggins has fully acclimated to the Warriors’ defensive setup and their steadily moving offense this year. The Canadian has also prospered in the postseason, using Doncic as the main defender and providing perhaps the highlight of the playoffs to date when he sank the Slovenian superstar in the third match of the Conference final.
The postseason has also seen Kerr rely on rookie teens Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody with significant minutes, pointing to a bright future for the franchise.
This incarnation of the Warriors is by no means perfect. They are not the dominant mastermind who fought (and most importantly beat) the Cleveland Cavaliers of LeBron James in four consecutive NBA Finals, as evidenced by his 39-point loss in the fifth game to Memphis in the second round; if Ja Morant hadn’t been injured midway through the series, Golden State’s path to the Conference Finals would have been more complicated.
But through their regeneration, the new-looking Warriors have the pieces to play in a different style from the Golden State dynasty, whether it’s small with Curry and Poole sharing the backcourt or suffocating opponents with their led defense. by the greens. And this series of playoffs has shown that they have maintained their full winning advantage.
Meet the new warriors. Like the ancient Warriors.