Don't let wild Game 1 overshadow Stephen Curry's dominance

Sam Amick USA TODAY Sports

Published 7:38 p.m. UTC Jun 1, 2018

OAKLAND — Steph Curry leaned against the Oracle Arena wall near the loading dock late Thursday, trying to make sense of this night that will always be remembered as one of the strangest of his basketball life.

His Golden State Warriors had survived the relentlessness of LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals – somehow, someway, and thanks largely to the late-game mental gaffe that might haunt J.R. Smith for all of his days. And Curry, who just three days before had seen his team's season pushed to the brink in Game 7 of the West finals against Houston, was already putting this 124-114 overtime win on his personal short-list of all-timers.

“Obviously I’m glad we won, but the way the regulation ended, the way ‘Bron played, the way we were kind of up and down but played a solid game and the back and forth kind of nature of it, it was …” Curry told USA TODAY Sports.

What was it, exactly? Even the man who was in the middle had a hard time describing it all.

“It never felt panicked or anything, but it never felt settled either,” he continued. “So it was kind of a weird vibe with everything, and it comes down to a missed free throw (by George Hill), a poor time clock management situation (by Smith), and we go to overtime and for us to play the way we did, obviously there was a nice sense of relief there for sure.”

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A game like this is capable of swallowing subplots because, well, there were just too many to keep track. The film of James’ latest virtuoso performance – a playoff career-high 51 points, eight assists and eight rebounds – should be enshrined in the NBA TV Hall of Fame by morning. Smith thinking the game was over at the end of regulation will be front and center until Game 2 Sunday, as will the late dust-up in which Tristan Thompson was ejected and Draymond Green looked positively ecstatic about all the edginess on display.

“It was a bunch of nothing,” Curry said of the sequence. “The very last possession of the game, of overtime. (James) said something. I said something, and then Tristan lost his mind for a second, and that became a distraction from the fact that we were closing out an overtime game. Emotions kind of flaring at the end, and it could have gone either way.”

But while Curry’s night might get lost in it all, it shouldn’t. The two-time MVP kept the Cavs from pulling away in the first half, when Cleveland led by as many as 11 points but Curry’s scoring – including his buzzer-beating three from 38 feet out at the break – sparked a 56-56 tie. He finished with 29 points, nine assists and six rebounds, the kind of line that makes him the early leader in the Finals MVP clubhouse if the Warriors go on to win.

But this was bigger than that for Curry, who has always had a way of trying to appreciate these moments in real time. At one point during the game, he said, the thought crossed his mind about all the fans and critics who had said this would be a snoozer of a series but couldn’t have been more wrong. And now, after that 58-win regular season that felt so mediocre and the Houston series that tested them so, there’s another annual reminder about what championship basketball entails.

“This year has really taught us how hard it is to not just get here, but to win a championship,” he said. “We say that every year, and it’s true, but when you’re in the moment, and you leave Houston after Game 7 and you’re like, ‘That was hard.’ Then you go over here.

“I think that was part of why we may have struggled (in Game 1), was they play entirely different than Houston does and their game is totally different. To have to adjust on the fly like that is a little different experience than last year. We had eight days (to prepare last year after sweeping the West finals against San Antonio).”

Four years of Finals faceoffs has taught Curry that this stage is never easy, but there’s a need to enjoy the unexpected challenges along the way that was certainly heightened in this one.

“I soak up every bit of it,” he said. “It’s the Finals experience. It’s part of my nature just to enjoy every moment that you get. I can pretty much go back and recount everything in 2015, every game, 2016, every game, last year, and this one falls right in line with that type of feeling.

“Yeah, it’s fun, man. I’m sitting on the bench before the game starts, and you look around, and it’s like, ‘We’re playing in the NBA Finals.’ That should never lose its spark. That should never be – you never should wake up and be like, ‘Oh, I’ve got another game, it’s just the Finals, ho-hum.’”

Rest assured, there was nothing ordinary to see here.

Follow USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick on Twitter @Sam_Amick

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