It was that jump that created that aforementioned concern — why did Curry get better when Durant was out? In a season dominated by individual greatness and insane box-score numbers, it was easy to create a direct, mutually exclusive relationship between Durant’s absence and Curry’s late-season surge. There's only one ball, after all.

But the real reasoning behind Curry’s return to MVP form was simpler than that. When Durant exited, the Warriors’ offense from 2015 and 2016 returned in earnest. At the start of the season, the Warriors fed Durant the ball — there were a ton of plays called for the new guy — and because he’s Kevin Durant, the plays, most of them rather unimaginative, worked (1.05 points per isolation possession). It wasn’t optimal — those isolation looks didn’t carry the same verve or pace (or joy) the Warriors played with in their back-to-back Finals-berth seasons — but there didn’t seem to be much reason to let perfection get in the way of exceptional.

But when Durant exited, the Warriors weren’t going to call isolations on the block for his replacements, Matt Barnes and Patrick McCaw, so they went back to the formula that won them 140 regular season games the two years prior — play great defense, get out in transition, and have Curry be the talisman on the offensive end.