Golden State is the champion again, beating Boston 103-90 on Thursday night (Friday morning AEST) for its fourth title in the last eight seasons, with Stephen Curry named NBA Finals MVP.
Curry scored 34 points for the Warriors, who won the franchise’s seventh overall championship.
And this one completed a journey like no other, after a series of five consecutive finals, then a collapse to the bottom of the NBA, and now a return to greatness just two seasons after having the worst record in the league.
For Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala, it is a fourth championship. The first three rings came in 2015, 2017 and 2018, when Golden State was dynastic and made five consecutive trips to the final.
Injuries, including those left out by Thompson for 2 1/2 years, and list changes changed everything. But this season, with Thompson halfway back, the Warriors are finally back.
Back to top, too. Champions, again, denied the historic Celtics what would have been their 18th record championship, one that would have allowed Boston to break the tie with the Los Angeles Lakers for most of the league’s history.
This story for the Warriors ended very differently from their most recent appearance in the final against Toronto in 2019, one that saw Kevin Durant break his Achilles tendon in Game 5 and then to Thompson to tear the LCA in which it became the winner of the title of the Raptors to the game. 6.
The consequences of this loss were compounded by Durant’s decision to leave the agency for free that summer to join the Brooklyn Nets and Thompson’s Achilles injury while rehabilitating his knee injury. .
He drove a Golden State team to a rebuild that turned into a reload.
The Warriors used their two-year hiatus from the NBA’s biggest rounds to reorganize their roster, adding a No. 1 draft pick from Andrew Wiggins, who stood out in his first finals, along with another rising star Jordan Poole.
Everything clicked. For Golden State coach Steve Kerr, it is a ninth overall championship after winning five as a player.
He is the sixth coach to win four titles, joining Phil Jackson, Red Auerbach, John Kundla, Gregg Popovich and Pat Riley.
Jaylen Brown led the Celtics with 34 points. At Horford he added 19. Jayson Tatum finished with 13 points, but only shot six of 18 from the field.
Boston also suffered 22 staff losses, dropping to 1-8 this postseason when it committed 16 or more. It was only his fifth defeat in 22 appearances in the title series.