OAKLAND, Calif. — They played like they knew this was coming, some way, some how, like it was inevitable, like it was everything they planned and dreamed back in July.
The Warriors played like they had a vision of this long ago, and it was this, exactly this:
An incredible crack of thunder to take the lead in a championship-winning moment, then just holding on tight, tough and together.
At the end of his longest, starriest, most over-exposed Warriors season on Monday at Oracle Arena, Kevin Durant had the ball, Stephen Curry was near tears, the clock expired for a 129-120 victory in Game 5…
And they were NBA champions. It made them stumble and cry and roar and quiver with emotion.
After the final buzzer, the players, coaches and executives exploded in a pulsating crush of energy that surpassed their celebration in 2015 (in Cleveland) and touched on every dramatic piece of this journey.
They outlasted LeBron James, the man who beat them last year; they exorcised the demons after blowing a 3-1 series lead to the Cavaliers last year; and they fulfilled the manifest destiny of what they put together when they landed Durant last July.
And they ended it with the five players who came together in The Hamptons to recruit Durant — Durant plus Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala.
The Hamptons 5 started this. And they ended it on Monday, 11 months later, with Curry and Durant in a fierce hug at mid-court and Iguodala leaping onto the scorer’s table to scream to the crowd.
It was a release, it was pure joy, it was history, and it was probably not nearly as easy as they made it look through this 16-1 playoff run, including a 4-1 Finals victory over this great Cavaliers team.
In the end, coach Steve Kerr — who missed 11 games of these playoffs due to acute pain, but came back for Game 2 of the Finals — was crying tears of happiness, and only he knows what he endured and fought through to get to this point.
But they all got there, got on the stage to receive the Larry O’Brien Trophy, and became the first major Bay Area team to clinch a championship at home since the A’s in 1974.
They got there, when everybody expected it from this superstar-laden team, and sometimes that is the hardest way, actually.
In Game 5, the Warriors finished it with guts, guile and gargantuan talent, and with Durant leading the way with 39 points — winning the Finals MVP along the way.
In this one, the Warriors looked unsteady at first, and trailed 41-33 at one point early in the second quarter.
Would the Warriors really lose another one and let this series go back to Cleveland for Game 6?
No, from that point, after a David West jumper started it, then two Durant 3-pointers lit the fuse, and from there it was a thundering stampede.
Then everything went full flight when Iguodala soared through the air for a tomahawk dunk — with James politely bowing away from the play — followed by two more Iguodala slams in the next few minutes.
By the end of the startling 28-4 run, the Cavaliers were dazed and nearly knocked out.
But James and Kyrie Irving kept battling for a while, kept pushing the Warriors, and it brought out the best of the Warriors again, at the end.
And that meant Durant making shots, Curry controlling the flow, Green smashing the Cleveland offense, Thompson hitting shots and Iguodala — the 2015 Finals MVP — lifting the team again in the most important moments.
That group played out most of the fourth quarter, closed out the game, and then surrendered to the emotions that had been building…
For a year, since they lost Game 7 here to the Cavaliers…
For 11 months, since they landed Durant and received so much criticism for stacking the deck…
For months as they slogged through the regular season…
For weeks as they dealt with Kerr’s absence.
And for this night, when they delivered on their vision, when they got to the end of this adventure, and all they could for a while was cry together for a while, because they just finished one of the greatest seasons of all time.
