THE GOLDEN STATE Warriors finished the 2020-21 season on a 10-3 run to vault into the play-in tournament.
They failed to advance, losing back-to-back heartbreakers to the Los Angeles Lakers and Memphis Grizzlies, but that late-season run rekindled their collective faith after two lost years: When Stephen Curry is right, our style can still work.
Klay Thompson was set to return in 2021-22 after two crushing injuries vaporized consecutive seasons; Thompson tore an ACL in Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals, then ruptured an Achilles during a Nov. 18, 2020, workout — the same day the Warriors selected James Wiseman with the No. 2 pick in the NBA draft, a move that has haunted the team since.
The Warriors were right to be optimistic about the way the 2021 season ended, even after their losses in the play-in. They roared back the next season to win the fourth championship of the Curry/Draymond Green/Thompson era.
You felt the historic importance of that title in real time, the way it cemented Curry’s legacy and validated the Warriors’ beautiful game, but that championship has grown over two years to seem even more immense and special.
They accomplished it against a Western Conference in something of a holding pattern — a conference that was not anything like what next year’s West projects to be, with the Memphis Grizzlies presumably regaining their pace in the pecking order and young teams ready to rise.
That 2021-22 season was a placeholder for the LA Clippers and Denver Nuggets; Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard and Grizzlies guard Jamal Murray missed the entire season recovering from ACL tears.
The Phoenix Suns, the best team in the conference all season and incumbent Finalists, imploded in the postseason — unable to find any answer for the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic.
