An overwhelming sense of arrogance permeated the Toyota Center corridor that leads to the visitors’ locker room in the minutes following the Golden State Warriors’ series-clinching 103-89 win over the Houston Rockets in Game 7 of their first-round playoff matchup.
First came Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, the longtime pillars of the Golden State dynasty. “Surprise!” Green yelled, grinning like a movie villain you love to hate. Then came Buddy Hield, minutes after playing the game of his life, skipping through a sea of relieved staffers.
Sunday evening’s Game 7 was like a modern reboot of a Warriors classic. Hield led all scorers with 33 points, evoking Klay Thompson. Jimmy Butler scored 20 points and hit several timely shots in the second half. And all of it was capped off by the brilliance of Curry, who scored 14 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter, sparking a 12-0 Warriors run that put the game out of reach and punched Golden State’s ticket to Minnesota, where their second-round series against the Timberwolves will tip off on Tuesday night.
“Couldn’t be more proud of our guys,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after the win. “That was an incrediblely impressive display of resolve.”
The Warriors have been here before—and they carry themselves like it, leading almost wire to wire in a win-or-go-home game on the road against a hungry opponent. Despite all the new faces who’ve joined the team since even the 2022 title—let alone the 2015 one—Golden State retains its championship DNA. Everything still flows from Curry. The Curry-Green offensive mind meld still opens everything up for a bevy of role players. And the defense still clamps down when it needs to.
In the series against the Rockets, the Warriors’ confidence was tested, but it never wavered. Golden State cruised to a 95-85 Game 1 victory, as Curry glided to 31 points, including five 3-pointers and a few shimmies to boot. The Warriors snagged wins in two of the next three games to take a 3-1 lead, but the series began to take its toll. Butler missed Game 3 after a hard fall on his tailbone. Curry battled a thumb injury on his shooting hand. And the Rockets leaned on their youth and physicality, hounding Curry up and down the court and bludgeoning the Warriors inside with the double-big combo of Alperen Sengun and Steven Adams.
The effects of the war of attrition were magnified by Green, who accumulated two flagrant fouls in the first six games, routinely disrupting Golden State’s flow. But even as his behavior devolved to familiar lows, Green summoned his best in important moments, including a Game 4–sealing stop on Sengun, setting up a series-clinching game in Houston—the importance of which he then seemed to minimize.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Green said following Game 4 when asked how important winning a closeout Game 5 would be for the team. “When you have an opportunity to close, you want to do that. But it’s not like if we go in there and we’re not able to get the job done, we’re pulling our hair out. You just move on to the next one.”
The next two games showed the consequences of Green’s mindset. In Houston, the Rockets delivered a 131-116 beatdown that led Kerr to pull Golden State’s starters for the entire fourth quarter. Two days later, at Chase Center, the Rockets embarrassed the Warriors 115-107. In the second half of that Game 6 loss, Green threw Rockets guard Jalen Green to the ground, earning a flagrant foul.
“I spent the last two days embarrassed just at what I gave to the game,” Draymond said Sunday night. “I know I can ratchet my intensity up. I know I’m gonna be [intense] … and I felt like I was going too far.”
The losses prompted a night of self-reflection from Green, whose college coach, Tom Izzo; best friend, Travis Walton; and wife, Hazel, took turns taking the mercurial forward to task well into dawn.
“People I trust most had a heart-to-heart after the game,” Green said. “I spent the last two days embarrassed.”
The following evening, during a team dinner, Green stood up to acknowledge his mistakes and promise to be better.
“‘I’ve got to be poised and I have to be better, and we’re gonna come in here tomorrow and get it done,’” Kerr recalled Green saying. On Sunday, Green turned in a 16-point, six-rebound, five-assist performance, drawing praise from his coach. “I think his emotional stability tonight, just his poise from the start, I thought it set a great tone,” Kerr said.
In the Warriors’ most important game of the season, they rediscovered their balance and their winning formula. Golden State outscored Houston 33-27 in the fourth quarter, winning its fifth straight playoff series against the Rockets and throwing salt on a Rockets wound that’s been open since the beginning of Golden State’s run.
For the Warriors, the ability to dial in for Game 7 is a good omen for their series against Minnesota, who will enter Game 1 having had six days of rest. Like Houston’s, Minnesota’s roster boasts athleticism superior to the Warriors', more promising youth, and a host of long, tough defenders. It also features a generational talent named Anthony Edwards, who is itching to kick Golden State’s ass. Since the All-Star break, Minnesota has been one of the hottest teams in the NBA, winning nine of its last 11 regular-season games to finish sixth in the Western Conference. In the first round, the Wolves made easy work of the Lakers, beating LeBron and Luka in five games.
Meanwhile, the Warriors limp into the series facing three harsh realities: They’re old, they’re small, and most of the country doesn’t give them a chance. The Warriors themselves are confident, but unlike in past seasons, this team has little to no margin for error.
“They’re hot right now,” Curry said of the Wolves. “They’ve been playing some great basketball [over] the last couple of months, and we’re excited to have some more basketball to play.”
The next 48 hours will be filled with predictable story lines: of Butler’s return to Minnesota, the team he requested a trade from in 2018, and of whether Green can keep his hands to himself while sharing the court with Rudy Gobert. But Golden State’s biggest challenge may be finding the right balance between confidence and arrogance and enabling its collective experience to outweigh the grueling toll that playoff basketball takes on older teams.
For years, the Warriors have had the goods to routinely rule the rest of the league, using superior talent to overcome their mistakes. Now an underdog against the young Timberwolves, the Warriors will attempt to once again play the hits. But how far this group can follow its groove remains to be seen.
“One thing about this league,” Green said Sunday evening, “you’re never done proving who you are until you’re done. Completely finished.”
