Written by Chris Haynes at ESPN.com
The Golden State Warriors have advanced to the NBA Finals for the third consecutive year after sweeping the San Antonio Spurs by way of a 129-115 victory in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals on Monday.
The Warriors are now a perfect 12-0 in the playoffs, and they are the first team in NBA history to accomplish such a feat. They’re also the first team in NBA history to sweep three best-of-seven series in the same postseason.
“It’s a big task. It’s a huge accomplishment, and I tip my hat off to all of our players, our coaching staff was phenomenal,” Warriors acting coach Mike Brown said.
Stephen Curry produced a game-high 36 points on 14-of-24 shooting. He also had five boards, six assists and five 3-pointers.
He dribbled circles around whoever was guarding him. There was minimum defensive resistance, whether he was penetrating to the basket or getting open for 3s out of pick-and-pop sets.
After drilling his fourth 3-pointer of the game, Curry passed Kobe Bryant (292) for fifth place on the NBA’s all-time playoff 3-pointers list. Curry now has 295 career postseason 3s.
Curry said that starting “12-0 is great, but it doesn’t mean anything going into the next series.” He harped on how impressed he was with his team’s overall closeout mentality.
“It’s a great run, and we had an opportunity to get it done tonight,” Curry said. “But more importantly, it was obviously just a closeout kind of mentality coming into tonight, trying to take care of business, play a good 48-minute game.”
Kevin Durant dominated this game while in cruise control. Nothing was rushed on his part. He picked his spots and attacked when needed, which resulted in 29 points on 10-of-13 from the field to go with 12 rebounds.
“You look down at the box score, and KD had a heck of a game scoring,” Brown said. “He was very efficient with his scoring.”
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