Warriors' group mentality makes title a true team celebration

CLEVELAND – The room inside this downtown steakhouse was nearly empty. The revelry had come to an end.

Not long before, the Golden State Warriors had done their best to soak it all in. Their championship. Their journey. Their place in NBA history. Players, coaches, owners, executives and staffers alike just kept hugging one another, shaking their heads and sharing stories about the part that each of them played.

From the bar to the dance floor to the booth in the middle where Finals MVP Andre Iguodala had sat for so long with his family while reflecting on their magical season, this tight-knit group was packed into the private party at Morton's restaurant on West Second Street. It was hot, but no one cared. No one was sweating more than the Warriors' three-foot tall ice statue that was the centerpiece of their celebration.

"Strength in Numbers," their familiar motto read in blue and gold.

The head count, fittingly, was growing by the minute.

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"This definitely isn't 77 (people)," a waiter could be heard saying about the Warriors crowd that was so much bigger than originally planned.

But as the sun came up in "The Land" and they all headed for the hotel, a champagne-soaked straggler strolled through the near-empty joint en route to the exits. Stephen Curry's celebration, as it turned out, had gone into overtime.

Curry being Curry, he took a few minutes to say hello before heading out and shared one last conversation about how it all came to pass. When it comes to covering sporting events of this magnitude, the real insight gets harder to find with every passing round because of the circus element that just grows and grows.

Players like Curry and LeBron James are in such high demand that the casual reporter-player chats that are so routine during the regular season mostly come to an end. The podium press conferences have their substantive place, to be sure, but this topic wasn't the kind of place for that.

I wanted his perspective on a text message that came my way following the Warriors' Game 6 win, one that went right to the heart of the Warriors' story of sacrifice and the too-good-to-be-true part that Curry played. My wife, who ignores NBA basketball on most days but was among the record-breaking millions who tuned in to this series, had a question about this idea that the Warriors' best player lost out to one of his own teammates for the top individual honor.

"Is Steph upset he isn't MVP?", she wrote.

It certainly didn't look that way at the time, when the beaming Curry pumped his fist as if he'd sunk the deciding putt at the Ryder Cup when he heard Iguodala's name announced. Curry grinned and shook his head when the question from my better half was put before him in person, seemingly amazed that people might still be questioning whether his selfless style is real.

Rest assured, Curry felt joy for Iguodala both publicly and privately. And when we chatted about one of the moments that he missed – Iguodala's parents sobbing and hugging on the Quicken Loans Arena floor when the award came their son's way – it was as if Curry had just found the extras on the DVD of his favorite movie.

"That's really cool," he said.

Curry decided long ago that this group wouldn't get off the ground if they went down that dark road, the me-over-we path that that leads so many pro sports teams astray. He set that tone last summer, when all the ingredients were there for the kind of superstar spat that would have changed everything about their culture.

Mark Jackson, the former coach with whom he had grown so close, had been fired despite Curry's constant support. That's typically a free pass for the franchise centerpiece to throw a fit, especially when it's a player who was bringing unprecedented success to this once-laughable organization. But Curry took the high road, letting it be known that he didn't agree with the decision but also making it clear that he would lead the way in this new era under Steve Kerr.

When you set the bar that high, it puts a healthy kind of pressure on the rest of the group to meet that mark. Add in the fact that Curry is so universally loved and respected by his teammates, and you had a situation in which they all unofficially agreed to play by his rules and see where this high road took them. Put simply, no one wanted to let Steph Curry down.

So when Kerr told Andre Iguodala that he was going to come off the bench so that Harrison Barnes could live the starter's life, he made the choice not to go south. When David Lee learned that he wouldn't be getting his starter's spot back because Draymond Green had been too good while he was healing, he took great care to keep his frustration private and allow their ship to keep on sailing. When Andrew Bogut was benched after three games because of Kerr's series-changing decision to play small-ball, the big man didn't bitch.

The power of groupthink took over, and the chemistry born out it was as crucial as Curry himself.

Now that it's all over, it seems clear that the Warriors woke up in the fourth quarter of Game 3. Their late surge wasn't enough to avoid the second consecutive loss, but the coming days would include some of the most candid self-assessments you'll ever see.

Yes, Green had said, Kobe Bryant was right when he tweeted that the Cavs were playing like their lives were on the line and the Warriors like a team that was taking the opportunity for granted. No, Curry had admitted, they weren't fully ready to compete with confidence at this stage. They seized the series and avoided an upset that – especially considering the injuries to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving – would have been as humiliating as they come.

It's a good thing for them, too, because nothing is guaranteed in this league. They'll be an elite team for years to come because the roster is set up beautifully for that kind of run, but there may never be another time when there's this kind of health and happiness.

What if Iguodala decides he wants to start next season? What if Kerr finds himself with a big man battle between Bogut and young Festus Ezeli? What if teams like the Thunder or Grizzlies that suffered such ill-timed injuries get the kinds of breaks that the Warriors enjoyed this time around?

None of that mattered when Curry finally called it quits. This was the time to enjoy the present, with this party starting their victory lap that would include the Wednesday welcome home routine and a Friday parade in Oakland that will surely be electric.

Curry walked off into the sunrise, a smile on his face and a sense of satisfaction in his step. For him and these Warriors, it was a new day indeed.