The Golden State Warriors were not about to let the Dallas Mavericks build a comeback on the back of their Game 4 win. Instead, the Warriors treated it as an outlier in the series they dominated and took care of business with a 120-110 win in Game 5 on Thursday night to advance to the 2022 NBA Finals.
Golden State returned to the top of the Western Conference thanks to a great team play, but it is safe to say their impressive run had superstar Stephen Curry’s fingerprints all over it. Curry delivered a strong all-around series, averaging 23.8 points, 7.4 assists, and 6.6 rebounds per game. As a result, he was named Western Conference Finals MVP and awarded the inaugural Magic Johnson Trophy.
“The new trophy is pretty cool,” said Curry after being presented with the honor. “Especially with who it’s named after, the standard that Magic set in terms of being a champion and playing the point guard position, whatever other position he played. Just the excellence that he demonstrated throughout his entire career.”
The Warriors have made five consecutive NBA Finals between 2015 and 2019, winning three NBA Championships during that run. They then followed that with two seasons in which they didn’t make the playoffs at all. Golden State now hopes that the most recent NBA Finals trip is the mark of a new run. They will face either Miami Heat or Boston Celtics there.
