Sam Amick

USA TODAY Sports

OAKLAND — If the Oklahoma City Thunder were going down like this, coughing up a 3-1 series lead to the defending champion Golden State Warriors after coming so close to making such an improbable run to the Finals, Kevin Durant wanted his hands all over the ending.

So he buried that three-pointer with 2:51 left, then hit those free throws he’d earned going to the rim, and pulled up over Klay Thompson on the right side for a jumper that left all of Oracle Arena fearing the worst.

One apparent choke job, it seemed, was about to lead to another. Their Warriors had led by 11 with 3:10 to go, when back-to-back MVP Stephen Curry had gone behind-the-back around Durant going right for a finger roll at the rim. But in a finish that was every bit as exhilarating as the Western Conference Finals themselves, the Warriors held on in a 96-88 win that earns them a rematch against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

And Curry, in fitting form, finished the deal.

"I knew we were ready for the moment," the Warriors' two-time MVP said. "(I knew) we were a mature basketball team that tried our best not to listen to the noise when we were down 3-1. ... In that locker room, the talk was positive."

With 1:18 left, in a play that Thunder forward Serge Ibaka will surely regret from now until forever, he inexplicably fouled Curry on the left wing to give him three free throws and a 93-86 lead that relieved all sorts of Thunder pressure. After a Durant missed jumper, Curry would escape a chasing Andre Roberson to bury a three-pointer from the right wing with 26.8 seconds that all but ended it.

"There was opportunity for us to close the series out in 5 and 6 and 7," Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. "I don't know if that tells the full story of the seven games when you look at them in its entirety."

The confetti fell as it had during every win in this building this season, but this was different.

Curry finished with 36 points (13 of 24 shooting overall, seven of 12 from three-point range), eight assists and five rebounds. His fellow Splash Brother Klay Thompson – whose Game 6 performance brought them to this point – had six three-pointers in a 21-point outing. As a team, the Warriors hit 17 of 37 from three-point range. In Game 6 and 7 combined, the Warriors were 38 of 82 from three.

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But Game 7 was about the Warriors’ defense.

Oklahoma City shot 38.2% overall, with Durant the only starter with an efficient night (27 points on 10 of 19 shooting). Russell Westbrook had a nightmare finish to his season, hitting just seven of 21 shots (to go with 13 assists).

The Warriors, amazingly, became just the 10th team out of 233 to recover from a 3-1 deficit in a seven-game series to survive. In doing so, they avoided – at least for now – an offseason of infamy that would have come had their historic 73-win regular season been for naught.

Draymond Green and Steven Adams slam each other to ground in rebounding scrum

The third-quarter ooh and aahs in the Warriors’ 29-12 period all came from offensive plays – the Curry three from deep on the right wing as Ibaka closed that cut the deficit to five, the Thompson three on the right wing over Adams, the Iguodala three from the right that came after Curry beat Durant baseline and curled a perfect pass to his teammate, and certainly the Curry three that followed on the right wing that tied it 54-54.

But it was their defense – that stifling effort that forced the Thunder to miss 14 of 19 shots – that put them up 71-60 and on the verge of the Finals return.

As was the case in Game 6, when Oklahoma City led 53-48 at halftime, the Thunder controlled the pace and the paint in the first half yet let the Warriors stay within range. This time, they led 48-42 after Curry hit a circus shot at the buzzer – past Westbrook on the left as the seconds ticked away, past Durant, and a floater over the outstretched arm of Ibaka that hit high off the glass as he felt to the floor.

2016 NBA Finals: Warriors vs. Cavaliers

Thompson helped the Warriors stay afloat when their offense was stagnant yet again, hitting four three-pointers in a row after missing his first seven shots. Curry was on point early, tallying 12 points and five assists, but he was in rare company. The Thunder, having let the Warriors crawl within four, used an 8-0 run to extend the lead to 45-33 – Adams hit a bucket in the lane, Westbrook converted a three-point play, Durant buried a jumper from the left during, and Adams added a free throw. But the finish, as was so often the case for them this season, left much to be desired.

Still, this clearly wasn’t a case of Oklahoma City suffering from the Game 6 blues.

As they have all season long, OKC left the painful past behind them and opened with a 24-19 lead after the first quarter that made it clear Game 6 was a distant memory. Their defensive length and versatility, yet again, made things tough on this vaunted Warriors offense that shot just 34.8% (eight of 23). Thompson, whose 11-three-pointer performance had put given Golden State this chance, missed all four of his shots.

Meanwhile, it was a good sign for the Thunder that – despite Warriors coach Steve Kerr inserting Andre Iguodala into the starting lineup to guard Durant – he hit his first three shots (including one three-pointer) and had seven first-quarter points. In Durant’s previous three games, he had shot just 34.8% overall (30 of 86) and 20.8% from beyond the arc (five of 24).

“You don’t have to worry about me — I’m a professional scorer,” Durant had told reporters coming in. “I’ve been doing this for so long. I’m not saying I’m going to have a great game every night or I’m going to shoot well every night, but I tend to figure things out on the offensive end.”

He did indeed. The rest of the Thunder, as it turned out, did not.

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