Preview - Warriors, Celtics poised for NBA Finals classic

A resurgent Golden State Warriors are bidding to reclaim their throne at basketball's summit against a Boston Celtics team chasing history when the NBA Finals tip-off on Thursday.

After a gruelling regular season and a roller coaster playoff campaign, Golden State and Boston will open their best-of-seven finals showdown on Thursday in what has all the makings of a classic between two evenly matched teams.

Two years ago, the once-mighty Warriors -- the dominant NBA franchise of the past decade -- appeared to be facing up to the end of an era.

A league worst 15-50 record left them propping up the foot of the Western Conference, a precipitous fall for a franchise that graced the NBA Finals five times in a row between 2015 and 2019, winning three championships.

But with three pillars of that dynastic run -- Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson -- back to fitness, and under the shrewd leadership of head coach Steve Kerr, the Warriors are back in their preferred habitat.

The Warriors' swift return to the finals is a byproduct of a culture that endured throughout the depths of 2020's miserable 15-win season, or last season's elimination in the play-in tournament.

"The times when it was rough, we were losing, I think we still had a good group of guys," said Warriors center Kevon Looney, a member of the 2017 and 2018 title-winning Warriors teams.

"We were still able to keep that same culture in the locker room, even though we were losing. We still played our style of basketball, still holding guys to a high level and a high standard."

While relatively recent recruits such as Jordan Poole, Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga have all played key roles in this season's resurgence, the old guard of Curry, Green and Thompson have