The Golden State Warriors take it wire to wire to win 4-1 against the Dallas Mavericks.

A 14-0 Mavs run late in the third made things slightly interesting but they never got it lower than 9.

In the end, and thus concludes the series that Golden State really controlled quite well in a way that I didn't think they would be able to do,

but it was clear that the Mavs largely had no answers.

For Golden State we thought maybe they'd found something with the switching that didn't turn out to be the case, at all they executed that very poorly,

and couldn't keep guys in front of them as was the case all series.

And so Golden State is now back in the NBA Finals.

You and I were not together for this one. You are in the arena.

I was doing playback from home, but what were your takeaways being there?

Well, first off, this is the Warriors 6th NBA Finals appearance in the last 8 years, which is truly incredible.

I will admit pretty openly that when Ken DeRant left the Warriors, I, you know, I've been closest geographically while covering the entire league to the Warriors since 2009,

and just thought, okay, that phase of my, at least for the time being, that phase of my being able to go to finals games and all that is over.

And not necessarily because of Durant leaving, but Clay Thompson's first injury, much less the second injury, which happened a year later,

and whether we're talking about those players all getting back to not peak of their powers, but very, very high levels overall,

and the support from some of the young guys, Kavan Looney, had a big series, and also develop cultivating minimum salary guys.

We'll talk about Bielitsa's impact on this one, auto-porter overall in the season.

And it is a, it isn't a achievement, and it is fair to say that the Warriors record, net rating, all that fun stuff the last two years

is not reflective of their overall team quality, and there are obvious reasons for that.

But it is worth taking a beat to appreciate that because it doesn't happen every time a team is around the mountaintop for such a long time,

and then comes off, they don't usually make their way back.

Certainly not, and Clay Thompson now is six for his last six in terms of seasons that he's been healthy at the end, going to the NBA finals.

And I tweeted as they were getting blown out in game four of the 2019 finals without KD to go down 3-1, dynasty over.

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