OAKLAND — Only the basketball gods know what’s coming next.
The Golden State Warriors have played their way into quite the role reversal. They survived their 3-1 series deficit against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals only to stumble against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 5 of the NBA Finals when they were up 3-1.
So now it’s Game 6 on Thursday at Quicken Loans Arena, that rollicking venue where all bets will most certainly be off.
The fury of Cavs fans will wash all over Draymond Green, whose one-game suspension for his crotch shot on LeBron James in Game 4 was just the foot in the door Cleveland needed. Yet while Green will be playing amid enormous pressure, knowing that it’s time to right his wrong that put Golden State in this place, no one is at the crossroads of controversy more than Stephen Curry.
This isn’t about the Finals MVP debate anymore, that hollow discussion in which the notion of Curry not winning it two consecutive seasons was deemed a disgrace by some. That line of thinking ignores the inclusive, incredible beauty of these deep and balanced Warriors. And truth be told, it was a silly way to kill time while we waited for the Warriors’ championship parade.
This, more than anything, is about the Warriors’ title defense being in trouble and Curry’s part in it.
Any way you slice it, the back-to-back MVP has fallen short of those lofty standards that he set in the past two magical seasons. He has had his moments, chief among them the 38-point outing in Game 4 that put the Warriors on the brink of a repeat. He had a nuanced effect on those first two wins, when his stat line — combined 29 points, 10 assists, zero steals and nine turnovers — didn’t account for what his mere presence does to the opposing defense. But the Curry picture as a whole isn’t pretty.
GALLERY: BEST OF THE NBA FINALS
Not only is the individual production way down from Curry’s historic regular season (from a league-leading 30.1 points per game to 22.2; 50.4% overall shooting to 42.4; 45.4% from three-point range to 41.5; 6.7 assists to 4.6), but his turnovers are up (3.3 per to 4.4). In terms of good, old-fashioned winning basketball, his plus-6 rating in the plus-minus category is tied for fifth-best among Warriors players in the Finals (Andre Iguodala is plus-41, Green is plus-36, Leandro Barbosa is plus-26 and Shaun Livingston is plus-15).
His second half in Game 5 was a missed moment if ever there was one, as Curry — whose Warriors so badly wanted to celebrate their latest title at home after winning it on the road a year ago — shot 4-of-13 from the floor in the second half (8-of-21 overall) and misfired on several open looks that could have changed everything. And little by little — with the Cavs’ Kyrie Irving averaging 35 points on 55.8% overall shooting, 50% from three-point range, six assists and two steals in the past three games — the tides have turned on this point guard matchup that seemed so lopsided early on.
For Curry’s part, he has never been drawn to the world of hero ball. So long as the Warriors were winning, he seemed impervious to all the talk about greatness and whether he fit that particular bill. But this, suddenly and surprisingly, is different.
"I don’t think (Finals MVP) matters at all in Steph’s mind," Shane Battier, who spent the last three of his 13 NBA seasons as James’ teammate in Miami, told USA TODAY Sports. "All he’s worried about is trying to get back-to-back. The fun of the NBA Finals, but kind of the annoyance as a player, is that there is so much time between games to create story lines. So you understand what’s real and what’s not. The only thing that’s real right now is that if the Golden State Warriors win this series and cap off a 73-win season, they’re arguably the greatest team of all time. I think that trumps 10 Finals MVPs that Steph could possibly win."
That last part simply can’t be forgotten: Winning back-to-back titles remains one of the toughest of NBA tasks. In the past 46 years, only five of the NBA’s 30 organizations — the Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls, Houston Rockets, Detroit Pistons and James’ Miami Heat — have been able to defend their crown (11 teams in all).
Regardless of how this ends, Curry will still be seen as one of the greatest players in the game today. But James’ dominance in Game 5 — that 41-point, 16-rebound, seven-assist, three-steal explosion in the 112-97 win — was the kind of performance that makes the basketball world rethink Curry’s unofficial status as the best.
Another title, with a Curry exclamation point at the end of this historic ride, would go a long ways for him and his Warriors.
Follow Sam Amick on Twitter @sam_amick.
