Warriors, Celtics poised for NBA Finals classic

SAN FRANCISCO, US: 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.