The Warriors still want to be the newcomers, the radicals shaking up the sport. But they’re the establishment now
After Detroit’s Chauncey Billups-inspired demolition of the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2004 finals, perhaps the NBA’s greatest post-season upset of the early 2000s came in the first round of the 2007 Western Conference playoffs. The Dallas Mavericks, owned by billionaire Mark Cuban and led by MVP-in-waiting Dirk Nowitzki, had come off a record-breaking regular season in which they’d won 67 games and lost just 15. The Golden State Warriors had not made the playoffs since 1994; their squad included a number of oddballs and castoffs from other teams such as small forward Stephen Jackson, who was traded by the Indiana Pacers after he fired a gun outside a strip club in Indianapolis. Not surprisingly, the Warriors were heavy underdogs. When eventually they polished off the Mavericks 111-86 at Oakland’s Oracle Arena to seal the series 4-2, the house erupted. “After the game, fans did everything but storm the floor,” wrote the New York Times. Warriors players crowdsurfed across the celebrating horde, carried aloft by their long-suffering supporters. Snoop Dogg danced. The country applauded. The great underdogs of northern California had pulled off the basketballing heist of the year.
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