Steph-tacular Curry: We never lost confidence

Golden State point guard Steph Curry says his team never lost confidence as they beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 96-88 to record a 4-3 series win and reach the NBA Finals.

The Warriors secured three straight wins to overturn a 3-1 deficit, with head coach Steve Kerr insisting he expected nothing less from the impressive Curry – who notched up 36 points in the Game 7 decider.

“We never lost confidence, and every game just played with fearlessness and that confidence that we could get back to The Finals however we had to get it done. So it was just a roller coaster from the time I got hurt to coming back and dealing with injuries and whatnot, and now we’re four wins away from our goal, and that’s a pretty special accomplishment.

“We knew it was going to be a dogfight, and for us to overcome that early deficit and claw our way back and the way that we did it with everybody having an impact, bench guys, starters, on the defensive end, obviously we made shots. It was just a very cool moment to enjoy that fan noise and understand we were on the brink of doing something very special and coming back from down 3-1, and that was it.

“It’s just you appreciate how tough it is to get back here. That’s the one thing I’ve learned. You can’t take anything for granted because it’s such a grind; it’s such a battle against a great Thunder team that pushed us to the brink. So you’ve got to be appreciative of this accomplishment, and I look forward to getting four more wins.”

Power forward Draymond Green feels this series was the biggest challenge yet for the defending champions and revealed the importance of Kerr’s half time team talk in Oakland.

“I think everybody will look at 73 wins and say, wow, this team never hit any adversity, but there is adversity in every season. It all comes in different forms. But when you’re talking down 3-1 and everything’s on the line that makes it 10 times worse.

“So it’s definitely the biggest thing that this team has had to overcome, and it took a great, tremendous effort and fight to overcome it. But like I said after game 4, if I think anybody can do it, it’s this group.

“Because once we figured something out, we can get it rolling, and I think, although we lost game 4, and we got punished, I think we figured it out. It wasn’t easy. That’s a great team we just beat, and we had to continue to fight. And I knew if we continued to fight, which I had no doubt in my mind that we would, that we could do it.”

Team-mate Klay Thompson has no doubts they will be up to the task of competing against LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers in the upcoming Finals and isn’t concerned by injuries and the heavy build-up of games.

“I mean, I feel great. I can’t speak for everybody, obviously. But I think the guys, no matter what they’re going through, we’ve got too many competitors on this team to let that hold them back. Guys have been playing hurt all year, and we’ve got, like I said before, way too many competitive guys that love to compete. They’re not going to miss a chance to compete in the NBA Finals.”