The Warriors’ season could end on Sunday night in Houston, but Golden State is packing its bags for a week.
“If you don’t show up with that appropriate mentality, then you’ve got a long vacation ahead of you,” Steph Curry said after the Warriors lost Game 6 at Chase Center on Friday.
Golden State’s 3-1 series lead has dissipated as Houston guard Fred VanVleet has caught napalm and the Rockets’ zone continues to flummox its offense. The Warriors’ season comes down to one game: if they win, they ship out to Minnesota for Game 1 on Tuesday. If they lose, they’ll have continued a recent pattern of teams choking away a 3-1 lead.
Curry and the Warriors have been here before. He and Draymond Green have played in five Game 7s together (their record is 3-2). Jimmy Butler has played in four. The entire Rockets roster has only participated in seven total Game 7s.
“I like our chances,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “I’ve seen what this group can do over the years, we’ve been in a lot of Game 7s and had a lot of success. Jimmy Butler is Jimmy Butler. He’s been in all of these games and is one of the clutch performers in the league. So we’ll get ready, we’ll regroup and be ready to roll.”
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The Warriors have the experience advantage. They know how tense the Toyota Center crowd will be, how valuable every possession is, how much pressure weighs down every jump shot.
“You don’t really do anything different, but you have to embrace the nerves and the adrenaline of it,” Curry said.
But as useful as experience can be, history can be powerful, too.
The Rockets are the 35th team in NBA history to force a Game 7 after falling behind in a series three games to one. Thirteen of those 35 have advanced overall, including five of the last six.
The 2023 Celtics are the only team to force a Game 7 and lose after climbing out of a 3-1 hole since 2015, and they trailed 3-0 in the series. Butler and the Heat closed out the Celtics in Boston after Jayson Tatum injured his ankle on the opening possession.
A one-game, do-or-die scenario can become a flip of a coin. And the momentum of winning the previous two games can weigh one side of it.
The Rockets have leaned into their double-big lineup with Steven Adams and Alperen Sengun, playing zone defense to keep that tandem viable. Houston has won Adams’ minutes by 53 points as Golden State has struggled to make open shots against the zone and can’t contain him on the offensive glass.
Adams’ impact isn’t sudden. But the Warriors have to go back to the drawing board before Game 7 to find a counter. Kerr said everything’s on the table in terms of personnel and scheme.
“The fun part about this is no matter how it looks, you win one game, you hit reset and get an opportunity to play another series,” Curry added. “This is a grind. This is tough. This is what it’s supposed to be in the playoffs: they bring the best out of you. To earn the right to get to the next round.”
Butler looked about 100% healthy in his third game back from the pelvic contusion he suffered in Game 2. He and Curry combined for 56 points, and the Warriors will need another massive performance out of them Sunday.
Butler has averaged 22 points and 6.3 rebounds in his Game 7 history.
“I think we just know how important it is,” Butler said, adding that his confidence remains at an all-time high. “They do too, though. On the road, backs against the wall, I think this is why you play this game.”
Curry, meanwhile, most recently dropped 50 points in a 2023 Game 7 win over Sacramento. He has averaged 32.6 points, 7.0 assists and 6.4 rebounds in his Game 7 career. When asked how experience shows up in a Game 7 scenario, Curry mentioned having a “killer instinct.”
The Warriors famously beat the Rockets in Game 7 in 2018 when Houston missed 27 consecutive 3-pointers. But they also blew a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals in 2016. They’re not infallible.
While the Warriors denied that fatigue has been a factor as they lost their grip on this series, the Rockets are younger and more athletic. There has been just one day between games since the opening weekend of the series, and flights between Houston and San Francisco are racking up mileage points.
The Warriors won’t be rested, but they’ll have to be poised nonetheless. They’ll have to be aggressors, the first to the type of loose balls they lamented losing in Game 6. They’ll have to manage their emotions, as Curry says, and not panic in a hostile Toyota Center.
“Definitely going to be higher energy,” Butler said. “But it shouldn’t feel any different for anybody. You go out there and you play basketball the way you know how to play it. For us, for my teammates, those nerves don’t need to set in. We’ll be just fine. Game 7 is not the hardest thing in the world, so we’ll be okay.”