Stephen Curry has already experienced the pressure and anxiety that accompanies a Game 7 in this postseason.
His Golden State Warriors had to survive that environment against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals to make it here, to the ultimate Game 7 situation Sunday night at Oracle Arena.
The stakes are sky-high and clear. A win over the Cleveland Cavaliers secures the Warriors’ second straight title, second straight at the expense of LeBron James and solidifies Curry’s status as basketball’s “it” guy, even if the reigning two-time and this season unanimous KIA MVP has not been at his very best throughout this postseason.
Curry’s fine with all of the scrutiny that comes with this stage; be it about his play on the court or the actions of others (including his wife Ayesha) off the court.
It’s a part of the deal; a part of what he signed up for when he went from a promising All-Star talent to a player whose names gets bandied about, along with LeBron, as the current face of the NBA.
So it should surprise no one that Curry’s acknowledges what’s at stake in Sunday’s all-or-nothing game and what is being asked of him on the game’s biggest stage.
“Yeah, I need to play my best game of the year, if not my career because of what the stakes are,” Curry said. “So that doesn’t mean scoring 50 points, though. That means controlling the tempo of the game. When I need to be aggressive ? well, I need to be aggressive, but when I do need to push the envelope, do it, but do it under control. Do it within the schemes that we’re used to as a team. Focus on the details on both ends of the floor. All those things go into having a great game, and I need to do that.”
Had Curry dialed up a “great” game, by his own lofty standards, a Game 7 showdown might have been avoided. The Warriors led this series 3-1 but failed to seal the deal in each of the past two games.
Draymond’s Green’s absence in Game 5 and otherworldly efforts from James and Kyrie Irving in Game 5, and James again in Game 6, certainly played a huge part in this series stretching to Father’s Day.
But Curry’s inability to get into his usual rhythm and flow, particularly on the offensive end, have no doubt played just as significant a role in the Warriors being unable to cash in on the cushion they built up earlier in this series.
They still have a chance to cap their record 73-win regular season in style, but they’ll have to do so with a monster Game 7 effort, from Curry and Klay Thompson and Green as well.
There’s more than just a game on the line, whether any of the people involved want to admit or not. Legacies, reputations and seats in the hierarchy of today’s game are also at stake.
“Sure,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who won five titles as a player and endured and thrived in the Game 7 atmosphere during his career. “Reputations from the critics, and that’s all a part of the machine that the NBA is, and that’s why we all make a lot of money. That’s why it doesn’t bother me. So everybody’s reputation is at stake in terms of legacy or whatever and what people write, but in terms of people that matter ? your family members, your friends, your teammates, the people in the organization ? nobody’s reputation is at stake.
“We’re trying to win a game, and it doesn’t change anything about anybody on either team, win or lose. It changes the narrative for the media, and that’s the deal. That’s the deal we accept when we sign up for this stuff.”
That doesn’t mean that the Kerr and the Warriors aren’t cognizant of the very real Game 7 pressure that any team in this position faces. Every social media slip up or cross word uttered during an interview session can be interpreted a million different ways. The spotlight never shines brighter than it does now, no matter how accepting you are of the reality.
“If you don’t feel pressure in Game 7, you’re probably not human,” Kerr said. “I told our guys that. Of course, they’re going to feel pressure. Of course, there’s going to be some anxiety. But how lucky are we to feel that pressure? You could play on a lottery team your whole career and just make a bunch of money and go watch the playoffs every year. That sounds great.”
It sounds great to competitors who operate at the superstar level, the way Curry has the past two seasons. Childhood dreams off chasing and winning at the highest level have become his reality. He’s yet to put his signature on this series the way James has, but he knows the opportunity to do so is at hand.
What looks like chaos from the outside, noise and drama that could have been avoided, is just a part of the journey for Curry, whose understanding of his circumstance couldn’t be more grounded, same as his coach.
When asked if he had to check in on Curry over the course of the 36 hours leading up to Saturday’s media sessions, Kerr joked that they “just tweet back and forth to each other.”
Curry insists that nothing will shake his focus on the task at hand, not his wife’s tweets or any furor that they cause, or from the opportunity to feel that championship feeling again.
“There is nothing that’s really going to distract me from what’s happening on the court,” he said. “Yeah, I get asked about it, and what’s between me and Ayesha is ? the conversations about what happened, that’s gonna be handled. But other than that, that doesn’t take any spotlight off of what my job is on the floor and what these next 48 minutes are going to be like in Game 7. So that’s all I’m worried about. I might have to cut the Wi-Fi off at the my house, though.”
All jokes aside, Curry has to be at his best Sunday night if he wants to control his own narrative, if he wants to write his own story. Being good simply is not enough. He has to be great. And he knows it.
“Four out of six games I’ve played pretty well to my expectations, my standards,” he said. “So I need to take it up another notch for Game 7 … that’s what the greats do.”
Sekou Smith is a staff writer for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
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