The Rotation: Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant brought fire

Welcome to The Rotation, our daily playoff wrap-up of our favorite stories, large and small, from last night’s NBA action.

It Must be the Shoes!

By Brandon Jefferson (@pengriffey_jr)

Steph Curry’s rise to superstardom has not faced many bumps in the road. Just like his pull-up jumper in transition, Curry rarely missed as he became one of the best players in the NBA. Yet, Curry’s fatal flaw on the court was something mostly out of his control.

After leaving Nike for Under Armour, Curry quickly became the face of the Baltimore-based footwear company. Through three iterations of his signature sneaker, Curry did not get much praise for the look of his kicks. As a matter of fact, his shoes got dragged through the mud on social media routinely –we will never forget the Chef Curry 2s.

However, in the lead up to tipoff last night something unexpected happened. The ESPN cameras caught a shot of Curry lacing up his sneakers during pregame warmups. Artistically elevated on a chair in front of him, the world got its first glance of the Under Armour Curry 4. As the image circulated around Twitter words like “tough”, “omg”, “wow”, and “flame emoji” (lots, and lots of flame emojis) accompanied the shot. Instead of memes and jokes the response to the newest Curry shoe was mostly admiration.

https://twitter.com/DylansFreshTake/status/870434615462440960

https://twitter.com/TheHoopFocus/status/870425180107030528

With fire on his feet, Curry was laced with a flamethrower attached to his right arm. After performing at less than an ideal level a year ago, we got a look at Curry playing at his highest level on the biggest stage. Kevin Durant stole the show in Game 1, but Curry was 1b to Durant’s 1a for Golden State. Curry finished with 28 points on 11-22 shooting from the field and 6-11 on 3-pointers along with 10 assists, and six rebounds.

A high-top shoe equipped with a full knit bootie upper with Under Armour’s Threadborne technology supplying support, these latest signature kicks are poised to have a big impact on and off the court during the 2017 NBA Finals. While the Curry 3 was a dud, the potential is there for his newest sneaker to be the one to revolutionize the Steph Curry brand.

And just in case you didn’t get the chance to see the shoes before the game, Steph made sure to show him off for the world during the game.

You don’t know Kevin Love, and neither do I

By Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)

If you’re like me you probably watched Kevin Love on the first possession of Game 1 and thought, “I can’t believe he’s still shook.”

Love got Klay Thompson matched up with him off a switch. He tried to back Klay down but bounced once off Thompson’s torso without gaining any ground. With the shot clock running down, Love was forced into a fadeaway that barely….barely…hit the side…of the backboard. It was ugly, the kind of shot you take when you can’t lift your arms above your head because of the weight of those damn monkeys on your back.

The thing is, Love was supposed to have shed all those monkeys. He stopped Stephen Curry! We know because there’s this play, that we refer to as “THE stop.” Love had a great season. He played loose and fun and free. He made a boatload of 3-pointers in the first few round of the playoffs. Even Wes said he was a different dude now. But the Kevin Love who hurled that deflated balloon at the side of the backboard looked painfully familiar.

The problem is I spend so much time staring at Kevin Love doing basketball things on my television screen I sometimes forget that I don’t know him at all. I have no idea what kind of emotional or psychological weight he carries. No idea what makes him shook. I just read body language on a screen.

Love shot 4-of-13 in Game 1. You’re going to read a bunch of stuff about how LeBron needed more help in Game 1 and Love didn’t show up. Heck, you’re probably going to read that on this very website. And it’s kind of true. But Love also made half of his 3-pointers (3-of-6). He had 21 rebounds. And 3 blocks. He drew a huge early foul on Draymond Green that his team couldn’t capitalize on, and Love played defense about as well as could be expected considering this terrible matchup.

What I’m getting at is that the Cavaliers didn’t lose because Kevin Love isn’t good enough, or because he was scared of the moment, or weighted down by back-humping monkeys. He missed some easy shots around the rim against some lanky defenders but, on balance, he played a pretty good game. Sometimes that’s not enough against the Warriors.

Kevin Durant is playing with fire

By Wes Goldberg (@wcgoldberg)

The Warriors had been waiting for this since losing Game 7 on their own floor in last season’s NBA Finals. They wanted another shot at LeBron James and the Cavaliers, and on Thursday they laid the hammer, winning Game 1 113-90. It’d been nearly an entire calendar year for Golden State to get this chance, and during that time they added Kevin Durant. They saw Cleveland’s three stars outplay their own, and raised them one.

For as long as it took to get back here—after a full summer, a long 82-game season that they didn’t care about, 12 inconsequential playoff games and 10 days off—it took Durant even longer.

It’s been one year for Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, the original trio of a Warriors team whose greatness came relatively quickly.

It’s been five years for KD.

Five years since losing to LeBron’s Heat team in five games in the 2012 finals. He was 23 then, and the headliner of a young team that seemed poised to make multiple championship runs. That Thunder team was the Warriors before the Warriors. But we know about the undoing of that group, and what has happened since. Durant came to Oakland to get something every other star in this series already has. A ring.

The Warriors came out hungry, Durant came out starving. His intensity ignited a team that didn’t need much motivation. He celebrated teammates after made dunks, offensive rebounds and forced turnovers. Durant scored a game-high 38 points, but he may have finished with even more high fives and growls than baskets.

It’s true that extra motivation isn’t needed in the NBA Finals, but it’s possible for someone to be more motivated than anyone else. Durant’s fire radiated off the court and through the television. Everything about this game for him was competitive and vital, from dunks in transition to trash talking Rihanna.

Durant has had a long time to think about what went wrong in 2012. He responded by dominating every aspect of the game. He’s no longer just the 23-year-old sensational scorer. He bodied up LeBron on defense (that was James Harden and Thabo Sefolosha’s job five years ago), created for his teammates (eight assists) and started fast breaks with his rebounds (eight rebounds, second most on the team). He was, for all intents and purposes, Golden State’s LeBron.

Since 2012, Durant’s career has been anything but storybook. But now, by finding his way back in the ring with an all-time great player, and elevating an all-time great team, Durant can flip the script. He’s trying like hell to make sure he gets his. He’s playing with an urgency we’ve never seen from him. As Durant said after the game, “What other option did I have?”

Doomed thoughts — a therapeutic postgame exercise

By Daniel Rowell (@danieljrowell)

With 1:28 remaining in the third quarter, Steph Curry passed the ball to Draymond Green in the post against LeBron James. Green took one dribble with his left arm tied up with James before turning for a forcing a one-handed hook shot. The ball rolled in as the whistle blew and Green completed just his first field goal on the night, a three-point play. By then the Warriors, up 90-68, had expanded the lead to 22 and I, an admittedly neurotic Cavs fan began to mutter the words “doom” aloud, like a guttural exhaust of existential sports dread, and pacing my apartment every few minutes to refill my water glass.

Luckily, my therapist had shared a worksheet to help challenge my automatic thoughts – in this case that the Cavaliers had no chance against the Warriors. So I took some time to complete it.

Do I know for certain that the Warriors will sweep the Cavs ? Am I 100% sure that the Warriors will sweep the Cavs ?

No. I guess I don’t know 100%, but I’d say after Game 1 I am at a solid 65%.

What evidence do I have that supports this idea?

The Warriors haven’t lost a game since April 11, 2017. They swept the three previous opponents they faced in the playoffs, and are now 13-0 in the postseason. They have arguably three of the four best players in this series on the same team. And seeing as Kevin Durant had 38 points, 8 assists and 8 rebounds, maybe the best player on the court in Game 1 wasn’t LeBron James.

Is there an alternative explanation? What evidence do I have that the opposite it true?

It is possible, I guess, that this is one of LeBron and Lue’s game plans – they wanted to give the Warriors Game 1 and let Durant go off to get create conflict between Curry and Durant in some kind of mindgame to get them to choke away another series lead while fighting for who gets to be the real MVP. I mean, Durant did have way too many open looks at the basket and JR kind of just slid away from this dunk without even trying.
Does the Cavs losing Game 1 have to lead to or equal the Cavs being swept ?

Good point. The Cavs lost Game 1 on the 2016 NBA Finals but won the series in 7 games and were not swept. But that Warriors team didn’t have Kevin Durant. Warriors plus KD may equal brooms and dooms.

What is the worst that could happen if this were true? Could I live through that?

The Warriors could go 16-0 and print “Warr16-0rs” t-shirts and later when I have to visit San Francisco for a friend’s wedding or something I’ll see one of my friend’s dads in one of them with it tucked into his khakis and remember the 16 quarters of basketball it took for doom to slowly settle in. I guess I could live with that but it would be really hard.

What is the best that could happen?

The Warriors could go up [redacted] again, and then blow said [redacted] lead.

What is the effect of my believing the automatic thought?

I mean, honestly I think preparing for inevitable doom and a 16-0 sweep would almost be a good thing at this point. It may make it easier to cope with the next three times in a row that the Cavaliers lose. Or later if this is not true I could just laugh at this.

What could be the effect of changing my thinking?

Not really sure. I guess if I changed my thinking I could just go through this same gut punches, doom, and challenges to automatic thoughts when the Cavaliers lose Game 2.

Next: Stephen Curry followed this trend when he got hot in Game 1

What would I tell a friend or family member if they were in the same situation?

I did text my Dad the word “Well.” He hasn’t replied yet. He is fairly superstitious or maybe just fell asleep because these 9 PM starts are fairly rough on the ET crowd.