The NBA champions could have splintered as they found themselves down time and again in the Western Conference finals. But this is a team that rarely flinches

Who knows how much the Western Conference finals would have been different had Chris Paul not tried that crazy pirouette at the end of Game 5? If the Rockets guard hadn’t pulled his hamstring and ruled himself out of the series, Houston might have had the necessary poise in the second-half of Monday’s Game 7 to hold off the Golden State Warriors.

The lasting image of Houston’s collapse on Monday was Paul, clad in a Rockets tracksuit, angrily pounding the chair beside him as the Warriors sank shot after shot. Unable to stop the carnage, Paul watched in agony as Houston spiraled out of control, throwing away passes, tossing up wild shots and looking like a team that had no business being anywhere near the NBA finals.

But that would be assuming Paul had the power to stop the Warriors’ brilliant machine. And given the way the Warriors play – almost always together, almost never with panic – this series was destined to end in a hail of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant jump shots.

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After the Warriors had celebrated their fourth-straight trip to the NBA finals, where they will play LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers for a fourth-straight time, they talked about the calm that fell over them as Houston ran up a big first-half lead. Their timeout huddles were not angry. Their half-time talks were productive.

Klay Thompson said their coach, Steve Kerr, walked in and told them the first-half was their worst offensively all season and yet they were only down 11 points. It was a great sign, Kerr said, that if they played as well as they normally played, they would probably win.

Curry recalled a moment in the first-half when Draymond Green lost the ball and Houston’s James Harden turned the mistake into a basket. Curry had seen such moments tear other teams apart, with players pointing fingers and shouting blame. “It could have splintered,” Curry said in his press conference. “It could have been a moment where guys could have gone their separate ways.”

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Golden State’s players don’t splinter in such moments. Which is why it’s easy to wonder if a healthy Paul would have been enough to stop the Warriors second-half surge. Golden State’s culture is built around outlasting the bad times, finding a way to survive the worst that happens and turn a nightmare into victory. Paul might have brought stability to the fourth-quarter but he might not have been able to keep Curry from his effortless three-pointers and Durant from lobbing in jump shots when Rockets defenders had their hands in his face.

Much will be made about the differing styles of the NBA’s two best teams. Houston are built on the modern belief, buttressed with analytics, that favors individual contributions and believes the most valuable shots are lay-ups, three-pointers and free throws. Golden State play more of a team game and happily allow Durant to take jumpers inside the three-point arc. Neither approach is wrong. To blame Houston’s reliance on good statistical analysis for their defeat is silly. They had the misfortune of trying to hold a lead against a team that rarely flinches.

Curry later marveled at the challenge of this series. After they lost Game 5 to go down 3-2 he and his team-mates talked about how they were in a situation that was new to them. During their current era of dominance they had never trailed in a series without the safety net of home court in a potential Game 7.

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He called this realization “a part of our story we hadn’t been through before,” as if it was an adventure to be explored, rather than a fight for survival. And yet this is how the Warriors endure. Yes, they have three of the league’s best shooters in Curry, Durant and Thompson. Yes, they have the fire of Green and a talented bench. But other teams have had great shooters. Durant and Harden made up two-thirds of a fantastic Oklahoma City line-up that only made one finals and never won a championship.

Winning is about far more than talent. Winning is about surviving, having fun and sticking together. There were so many times on Monday when the Warriors could have unraveled, when Kerr’s message of unity could have fallen flat. Golden State could have folded, down 11 at half-time. The Warriors, rather than the Rockets, could have been the team that shot seven for 44 from three-point range.

But they don’t rattle. They don’t fall apart. They figure the worst moments of a game can be changed into something better. They figure that somehow they will win. And they usually do.