Warriors force deciding Game 7 with gritty comeback

OKLAHOMA CITY - In the most intense moment of their NBA careers, 12 minutes away from elimination and eight points on the wrong end of the scoreboard, the two-time league MVP sidled up to his long-time sidekick and basically announced that he was passing the baton.

“Steph told me before I went out in the fourth (quarter), ‘This is your time. You know, put on a show out there and have fun,’?” Klay Thompson said in the swirling aftermath of the Warriors’ 108-101 win at Chesapeake Energy Arena. “I took those words to heart.”

And perhaps ripped out the hearts of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

In so many postseason games over the past two years, Stephen Curry has provided the brilliance and Thompson has delivered just enough support to put the Warriors over the top. Saturday in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, the roles were reversed. And with Thompson leading the way, Golden State fought, pushed and willed themselves back into control of the series.

The Thunder had a chance to wrap up the West, dodge confetti and hoist the conference trophy on their own court, before their own adoring fans. They failed, so now the Warriors will get the same opportunity at Oracle Arena on Monday night.

“This is a huge win for us, considering we’ve had two elimination games and we needed to take advantage of them and just find a way to win,” Curry said. “So yeah, it doesn’t win us a ring. We’re not popping champagne or anything right now. We’re excited about the opportunity to go home and have a Game 7.”

Golden State still has a chance to become the 10th team in NBA history to overturn a 3-1 postseason deficit, and the first since 1981 to do it in the conference finals.

It will be just the sixth Game 7 this franchise has played since it moved to the Bay Area from Philadelphia in 1963. The Warriors haven’t won a Game 7 since 1975, when they outlasted the Chicago Bulls in the West finals en route to the NBA championship.

The Warriors have won more spectacularly and with greater consequence over the past two seasons - they did, after all, beat the Cleveland Cavaliers for the NBA title last year - but never under Steve Kerr have they overcome a greater challenge. The Thunder looked practically invincible here in Games 3 and 4, overwhelming Golden State with their height, speed and relentless activity.

Those advantages were evident Saturday as well. Oklahoma City outrebounded the Warriors 49-43 and shot 32 free throws to the visitors’ 24. The equalizer was the 3-point shot, the play the Warriors have revolutionized in recent years. They hit 21 of them, in 44 attempts. The Thunder were just 3 of 23 beyond the arc.

Thompson was lethal. He set an NBA postseason record with 11 3-pointers and finished with a career playoff-high 41 points.

“All Klay needs is a sliver of daylight,” Curry said. “The shots he made tonight were huge, obviously. But they were shots that he had his feet underneath him and he just had all the confidence in the world. He understood the moment. There were crucial situations, especially to start that fourth quarter, where - four-point game, six-point game, eight-point game, he hit a timely shot to keep us in it.”

Curry was right. The Warriors were down 83-75 to start the final quarter. They still trailed by eight at the 9-minute mark, and by seven as late as the 5-minute threshold. Time and again, Thompson sank a basket to close the gap. He scored 19 points in the quarter and nailed 5 of 6 3-point tries.

Andre Iguodala scored on a left-hand drive to tie the score at 101-101 with 2:06 on the clock, and the Warriors grabbed the lead when Thompson sank an audacious 3-pointer on the run with 1:35 remaining. A huge swing occurred with 55 seconds left when OKC’s Russell Westbrook lost control of a ball and it went out of bounds; the referees initially gave possession to the Thunder but reversed the call after watching a replay.

When Curry made a graceful arcing bank off the glass with 14 seconds left, it was pretty much over.

With all of that sensational shooting down the stretch, the Warriors’ defense was just as important. The Thunder’s final six possessions included five turnovers and one missed shot.

In fact, the Golden State defense was tremendous throughout the fourth quarter, as Oklahoma City scored just 18 points. Andre Iguodala was especially masterful. He’s one of the few players in the NBA who could hope to guard either Westbrook, the Thunder’s explosive guard, or Kevin Durant, the willowy shooter. Iguodala saw a lot of both in the fourth quarter Saturday.

“I thought Andre Iguodala was kind of the unsung hero,” Kerr said. “His defense throughout the fourth was huge, and then he made that big-time lay-in with a couple minutes to go.”

In Games 3 and 4 here, things got out of hand for the Warriors in the second quarter. The trend seemed to be underway again when Oklahoma City stretched its lead to 41-28 on a 5-footer by Durant with 4:28 on the clock. This time, however, the Warriors refused to wilt beneath the deafening crowd. They sneaked back into the race, thanks largely to Thompson, who smacked a pair of 3-pointers to help the Warriors draw to 44-40.

“Instead of an 18-2 or 20-4 run, it might have been 9-2 or 10-2, and that’s a huge difference because they’ve got a great team with great spurtability that can make up that lead in no time,” Thompson said. “Instead of giving them a 20-point lead at times, we were down 10. It’s only three or four possessions for us. So we never got discouraged.”

Nor did the Warriors get overconfident with the win. Saturday’s victory wasn’t an end point, just another milestone.

“If we thought tonight was hard, Game 7’s going to be even tougher,” Curry said. “Everybody on both sides of the ball is going to leave it all out on the floor. It’s win or go home.”

Just as it was Saturday for the Warriors, and as it was last Thursday.