With the Golden State Warriors facing elimination in Game 5 of the 2016 Western Conference Finals, here’s what they need to do to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder.
After a historic 73-win regular season, the Golden State Warriors are suddenly in danger of finishing the 2015-16 campaign empty-handed.
Thanks to a 118-94 throttling at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 4 of the 2016 Western Conference Finals, the defending champs are on the brink of elimination.
Game 4 was a mirror image of the Game 3 slaughter that handed the Dubs a 2-1 series deficit on Sunday. The Thunder got off to a fast start, the Warriors responded and then OKC opened the floodgates with a massive second quarter run to blow the game out of reach before halftime.
The Warriors cut the deficit to single digits a few times in the second half, by courtesy of a 19-point quarter from Klay Thompson. But in the end, several of the themes we’ve seen throughout this series reared their ugly heads again.
As I said at halftime: people will focus on Golden State's failings, but this is at least as much, if not more, about Oklahoma City.
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) May 25, 2016
Russell Westbrook (36 points, 11 assists, 11 rebounds, four steals) thoroughly outplayed Stephen Curry (19 points, 6-of-20 shooting, six turnovers) once again; the Dubs were ravaged on the boards by a 56-40 margin; they committed 21 turnovers and sent OKC to the foul line 40 times; Draymond Green continued to be a shell of his former self; and head coach Billy Donovan once again outfoxed Steve Kerr in every facet of his battle plan.
A Warriors warning: only nine out of 232 teams that trailed 3-1 in a seven-game series have come back to win.
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) May 25, 2016
Still, if there were ever a team to come back from a 3-1 series deficit and win a series (becoming the 10th team in NBA history to do so), it’d be these 73-win Warriors.
They haven’t looked like themselves in quite some time now, but no one should believe Golden State is dead until we see the body buried in the ground, especially with two of the next three games at Oracle Arena, where the Warriors are 46-3 in 2015-16.
Bearing all this in mind, here’s what the defending champs have to do in Game 5 to force a Game 6, stave off elimination and keep their hopes of a historic championship campaign alive.
Next: No. 5