The Golden State Warriors clinched their latest NBA title success with a Game 6 victory over the Boston Celtics on Thursday night.
Led by 34 points, seven assists and seven rebounds from superstar guard Steph Curry, Steve Kerr’s team ran out 103-90 winners at Boston’s TD Garden to seal the best-of-seven series 4-2 and claim their fourth championship in eight years.
It is their first since 2018, however, with that latter triumph followed by a finals defeat at the hands of the Toronto Raptors before major injury problems saw them miss the playoffs altogether in two straight years.
Curry, a two-time NBA MVP and eight-time All Star, was also named Finals MVP for the first time in his illustrious career after guiding the star-studded Warriors back to the pinnacle of basketball.
“I’m so proud of our group,” Curry said. “At the beginning of the season nobody thought we would be here except everybody on this court.
“We were so far away from it. We hit rock bottom with injuries and the long road of work ahead and trying to fill in the right pieces and the right guys. You can’t ever take this for granted because you never know when you’re going to get back here.”
The Warriors finished third behind the Phoenix Suns and Memphis Grizzlies in the NBA’s ultra-competitive Western Conference this season, but returned to the Finals with confidence after brushing aside the Denver Nuggets and Grizzlies in the playoffs before a rousing victory over Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks.
With home-court advantage secured, the Warriors actually lost Game 1 at Chase Center in San Francisco 120-108, but crucially fought back to claim Game 2 on home soil, 107-88.
The Celtics took victory as the series moved to Boston last week, regaining the series lead with a 116-100 win, but the Warriors levelled once more with a 107-97 Game 4 triumph as the electric Curry poured in 43 points to tie at 2-2.
They teed up their title-clinching victory with a 104-94 home win in Game 5 on Monday evening.
The Celtics remain tied with their great rivals the Los Angeles Lakers for the most titles in NBA history with 17, but the last of those successes came in 2008.
Boston claimed the third seed in the Eastern Conference this season, sweeping the much-fancied but troubled Brooklyn Nets and then edging out both the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat in tense, gruelling Game 7 affairs.
Reaching the finals was still a significant achievement for a young team under rookie head coach Ime Udoka, who admitted the pain of the loss but insisted the building Celtics will come back stronger.
“It’s going to hurt. It will hurt for a while,” Udoka said.
“That was part of the message. Let it propel us forward, the experience. Getting to your ultimate goal and falling a few games short is going to hurt.
“The biggest message was, learn from this, grow from it, take this experience and see that there is another level to get to.”
