After a 105-92 loss Friday to the Toronto Raptors, the Golden State Warriors are down, 3-1, in the NBA Finals. The series score is a familiar one for the defending champs, but being on the wrong end of it is not.
The series returns to Toronto for Monday’s Game 5 with the home team being one win away from the franchise’s first title. But Draymond Green is hoping the Warriors end up being on the right side of a 3-1 meltdown in the finals this time around.
After the Game 4 loss at home, Green was asked about the team’s pride after having won three championships in the last four years, and he said:
“That’s important to have that pride, to have the faith in what we’re capable of. We just got to take it one game at a time. We got to win one game. We win one, then we’ll build on that. But I’ve been on the wrong side of 3-1 before, so why not make our own history?”
That wrong side of history is, of course, the one season in the last four years when the Warriors didn’t win the championship. Against the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016, they were up in the series, but they became the first team to blow a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals, losing to LeBron James and co.
Golden State’s collapse led to years of ridicule and countless jokes, which still regularly come back to haunt the team.
But in the 2016 season, it wasn’t actually all bad for the Warriors when it came to 3-1 series leads.
In the Western Conference Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State lost three of the first four games, and once again, the defending champs were on the brink of elimination. But the series returned to Oakland for Game 5, and the Warriors won that and the next two to survive a 3-1 deficit.
The huge difference being down this time — aside from personnel and injury issues — is that Game 5 (Monday, 9 p.m. ET) of the series is on the road for the Warriors. And the odds are still seriously stacked against them with teams are 1-33 all-time after being down 3-1 in the NBA Finals.
