But their Dubs’ 65-combined-point night drove Cleveland’s LeBron James to come out with his own spectacular performance as he finished with his own triple-double of 29 points, 11 rebounds, and 14 assists. The electricity on the court created a duel for the ages as three MVPs battled it out in a high-scoring affair in front of Dub Nation.
Curry and James entered a unique portion of the history books as well, marking just the second time in Playoff history opposing players had triple-doubles. But having players like them show up at at time like this in the NBA Finals came as no surprise to Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr.
“The talent on the floor in this series is just unbelievable. Obviously with Steph and KD and Klay and Draymond, but trying to stop LeBron and Kyrie, Kevin Love was tremendous tonight. It really is a series that's just loaded with high-powered weapons all over the floor.”
The Dubs took their 2-0 series lead into Cleveland for the following two games, ultimately taking their first loss of the 2017 NBA Playoffs in Game 4. The Finals returned to Oakland for Game 5, where the Warriors would claim the championship for their second of three championships in a four-year span.
MORE NOTABLE QUOTES FROM A HISTORIC EVENING ON WARRIORS GROUND
Steve Kerr
“Well, it's been a great run, but none of that matters unless we can finish the job with this series. We know, trust me, we know. It was 2-0 last year and we lost. So playing an unbelievably good, competitive team, dominant team. They have, what, two, three losses the whole Playoffs. Now we got to go back there. This is where the series changed last year, so we're just trying to think about the next game.”
Stephen Curry
“Obviously did a lot of other great things and tried to impact the game across the board, other than just scoring and a total team effort tonight with how we played and withstood their first punch coming out of the first quarter.”
On his possession and dribble sequence against LeBron James in the third quarter:
“It's basketball, man, I mean, every possession have the opportunity to impact the game, doesn't matter who really is across from you, you don't get into the one-on-one matchups, especially on this stage because you get distracted from how you're supposed to be playing. Obviously he's a great defender, so if you have opportunities, you know you have to do something pretty special to score. But for the most part, you can't focus on like you're on the playground, it's just y'all two out there, that doesn't do you any good in those situations.”
Kevin Durant
“Like I said, we're worried about the series right now. So we're just trying to just stay in the moment. But for the most part we just try to play hard and try to play smart every possession down. Can we do that? We could play hard every possession, but can we play smart? That's the question sometimes. And so we're just trying to stay with it. We know this is far from over. We know how hard it is to be the best team in the league. So we got to just keep going, man, keep our foot on the gas and keep getting better every day."
