WHILE the city of Cleveland celebrates its first championship in major sports in 52 years after the Cavaliers won their first National Basketball Association title on Sunday (Monday manila time), Most Basketball Player Stephen Curry is in sorrow and dealing with the agony of defeat.
After capping off a historic season in disappointment after his Golden State Warriors recorded the best regular-season slate of 73-9, won their first 24 games of the season and came back from a 1-3 series deficit in the Western Conference Finals, Curry admitted that losing Game 7 and the championship is a bitter pill to swallow for him and his team.
“This will haunt me for a while,” said Curry in the post-game press conference after Cleveland defeated Golden State, 93-89, in the deciding Game 7 to claim the NBA championship and leave the Warriors with a broken heart as their magical season didn’t exactly end the way they wanted it to. “It means a lot to me to try to lead my team and do what I need to do on the court in big stages.”
Seemingly not his entire self in the finals, where his performance was inconsistent if not sub-par, Curry admitted to his shortcomings as well.
“Done it before and I didn’t do it this time around,” he added.
In a shocking conclusion, the Warriors are now on the bad side of history after being the first team to lose in the finals after holding a commanding 3-1 series lead.
With that, this is now being considered as the biggest collapse in NBA finals history.
Given that the conclusion of the season didn’t end up in their favor, Curry is aware that the record-setting season they had will be overshadowed by their inability to cap it with a second straight championship.
“It wasn’t easy what we accomplished, but it is not an easy pill to swallow what we didn’t accomplish,” he said.
The Warriors had three chances to clinch the championship but they were unable to get over the hump after Cavs’ superstars LeBron James, who was named the Finals Most Valuable Player for the third time in his career, and Kyrie Irving just went off and carried their team on their shoulders from Game 5 all the way to Game 7 to make history.
“We had a goal at the beginning of the year to repeat, and that goal we failed,” said Warriors’ forward Draymond Green.
