Warriors still feel sting of NBA Finals collapse

OAKLAND - People from less hospitable areas of the world sometimes complain that the Bay Area doesn’t have four true seasons. But veteran basketball player Andre Iguodala, who grew up in Springfield, Illinois, has become a believer.

“It feels like you had four seasons last year,” Iguodala said Monday amidst the crushing din of Media Day at the Warriors’ downtown practice facility, “the regular season, the playoffs, you had the OKC (conference semifinal) series, and then the Finals. So it was just a great wave of emotions.”

And the final wave, the final season-within-a-season, was a deep, dark winter for the Warriors. Even as the 2016-17 campaign begins (Golden State’s first preseason game is Saturday at Toronto), even as the Warriors accept their role as favorites following the bold acquisition of superstar Kevin Durant, they feel the chill of their collapse last June.

That’s what happens when you become the first team in history to blow a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals.

“I mean, I don’t really think that’s a pain you ever forget,” power forward Draymond Green said. “It’s easy to say, oh, we’re gonna put it behind us, or we’re gonna hold on to it and use it as motivation. Truth is, that’s a pain you’ll never forget for the rest of your life.”

And yet the Warriors are attempting to do precisely the things Green downplayed: put the heartbreaking loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers behind them, while simultaneously using it as motivation for the coming season.

After their own miracle comeback in the 2016 NBA Western Conference semifinal against Oklahoma City, the Warriors were perched on the doorstep of consecutive league championships. Then Green was suspended a game for mistreating opponents’ private parts, and LeBron James got hot, and Stephen Curry went cold and the Cavaliers swept the final three games of the series, including the last one before a stunned crowd at Oracle Arena, to steal the trophy.

The Warriors had been the darlings of the sports world after setting records with a 24-0 start and a 73-9 overall mark, and after Curry obliterated records for 3-point shooting. After the OKC win, resolve was added to the team’s attributes. Then the unthinkable happened. And after building them up for seven months, we all lent a hand in tearing the Warriors down.

They choked. They went soft. They were overrated all along.

The Warriors were pelted with all of it.

“You don’t hear it that much in person, but obviously on social media a lot,” shooting guard Klay Thompson said.

Twitter, in particular, is a realm that should have come with a travel advisory for the Warriors this summer.

Monday, one reporter prefaced a question to Curry by noting that the signing of Durant as a free agent sort of made people forget the Warriors’ collapse.

“You say people forgot?” Curry interjected, allowing himself a little smile.

The reporter clarified, suggesting that the public may have wiped its memory even if the Warriors hadn’t.

“I got you,” Curry said. “ … Every year’s different. You can remember the experiences, but you can’t let that affect your mind, like how you prepare yourself going into this year or how you show up to training camp Day One (today).”

This may come as a surprise, or even a disappointment, to many people wearing “Strength in Numbers” T-shirts, but the loss probably hasn’t haunted the players as much as it has their fans. Elite athletes frequently have a unique ability to let failure wash away, even as their ardent supporters mope and seethe.

“I never got too wrapped up in the praise, either,” Curry said. “It’s obviously a much better feeling, but I never feed off of that. It doesn’t change how I play, it doesn’t change who I am. Criticism just - you hear it, have a human emotional reaction to it, and depends on how you channel it. It doesn’t really bother me or affect the way I go about my daily life or how I play on the court, so it doesn’t matter.”

The bigger challenge might be holding on to just the right amount of resentment. Nothing feeds the competitive fire like that feeling you’re being disrespected.

“The only way to silence the doubters and those people that talk trash is to go out there and win, and have fun while doing it,” Thompson said.

Green insisted the Warriors, who see themselves as champions, needed no further motivation for 2015-16. He went so far as to call that thinking cliché, noting that their approach would have been the same whether they had won or lost against the Cavaliers.

Still, a little lingering disappointment might not be the worst thing in the world for this team.

“I don’t want to walk in the door like, ‘All right, Game 7.’ Nobody should be thinking that way,” Curry said. “But you should remember how you felt walking off the court, you should remember all that you did all summer to get yourself into a better position individually and collectively, and go from there.”

You can reach staff writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.