Tonight's game is really important. I know that might sound obvious, but there are the countless games during an NBA season that produce overreactions and hot takes and then there are the rare games like this where the grandiose analysis feels warranted. You have to dig through a lot of monotonous slosh as an NBA fan to arrive to the place where six of the best players in the world square off in a best-of-3 series to essentially win the title.
Make no mistake that winning this series is imperative to the (another trigger word upcoming) legacy of this Warriors team. Yeah, they've been to the finals three years in a row. Yeah, they've won two of them. Not good enough for me, not when the first of the three titles required six games against Matthew Dellavedova and not when the second took shamelessly prying the second best player in the world.
The Rockets are damn good, but there is no excuse for Golden State to lose this series, even with Thompson hobbled and Iguodala possibly out. It's a team that goes 6.5 deep with Gerald Green being the half and Trevor Ariza and P.J. Tucker being the fourth and fifth. I don't care if it's an iso slugfest or a drive-and-kick shootout, the Warriors should win. You acquired Durant to win these exact games. In game four, he didn't get it done and it looked like a lot of the same flaws we saw in OKC were exposed. If Harden outpaces him in iso situations again tonight, despite Durant drawing the more liberal switch and the lighter workload, then what does that say? To me, it would be a damning blow to KD's case as a top ten all-time player.