The Warriors lose the comfort of KD, but find comfort in old habits

With 3:22 left in the fourth and having just drawn a charge on Chris Paul and been assessed a technical in the immediate aftermath – a risky play with five fouls – Draymond Green hit a three on the left wing to give the Warriors a 94-89 lead and let out a visceral scream that rang through Oracle Arena.

It was a primal, raw moment, the kind that burns into your brain, a marker for a defining play, the kind that the Warriors haven’t had in years.

Adding Kevin Durant gave Golden State an air of nobility. For the better part of three years, no team has rivaled the Warriors’ basketball ability, and they have virtually cake-walked to two titles with a 38-10 record in the playoffs since 2016-17.

Durant is so viciously talented that the rest of the main core of the Warriors team – Curry, Thompson, Green and Iguodala – lost a little bit of their viciousness. The team was miles better because their talent was overwhelming and because Durant’s skill set allows him to almost seamlessly integrate into any gameplan with little negative repercussions.

There is a certain level of comfort that comes with a player the caliber of Kevin Durant, who will probably go down as one of the five or 10 greatest in the history of the NBA. And you often see that with Curry and Thompson, two future Hall-of-Famers in their own right who will defer to Durant’s greatness, because when push comes to shove that is what wins titles. You really can’t argue with 35 points a game in the playoffs and an 8-1 record in the Finals the last two years.

But when Durant sprained his calf in game five – an injury that looked significantly worse initially – that inevitability immediately turned into vulnerability. And in that vulnerability they found a little bit of the edge they haven’t had since bringing KD into the fold, helping them come away with what will go down as one of the five or six best games during the dynasty (barring the results of the series).

Curry hit several huge threes and clutch free throws. Green added his three and gutsy late-game defense. Iguodala connected on some layups and was locked in on defense. They gambled defensively, trapping and doubling Harden and forcing anyone else to beat them late. Livingston played some huge late-game minutes. A bench wing added a key three early in the fourth. And Thompson hit one of the biggest threes of his career with 2:34 left and somehow ended up with an ill-advised left-handed layup in between two defenders with four seconds left on one of those wild plays that epitomized that we’ll-find-a-way spirit that the pre-KD Warriors had.

They took risks, put up some questionable shots and it looked like they were hanging on for dear life, but it never felt like they were losing control.

The surrounding roster is a shell of what it once was, the core five have aged years and logged thousands of playoff minutes and they are more vulnerable now than they have ever been, even compared to 2016.

But its another kind of comfort in that reversion. The kind you feel when you head home for the holidays and hang out your childhood friends.

This team is different from the early Curry-Thompson-Green Warriors teams, but not really. And we saw shades of the pre-KD Warriors in game five.

Steve Kerr was throwing f-bombs around on the podium. Klay was doing his own fair share of cussing after his huge three. Draymond hi-fived Klay in the middle of the press conference for his clinching layup. Joe Lacob was slapping the hardwood, in Anthony Slater’s words “craving more defense.” Charles Barkley was announcing that the Warriors had no shot after losing Durant. All reminders of the essence of the pre-KD, pre-dynasty, pre-villainous Warriors, the Warriors that will now have to come away with one win in the next two games to keep their hopes of a three-peat alive.

For fans, this raw vulnerability brings some nostalgia, too.

“The building was literally electric,” long-time fan Stephanie Kaul messaged me on Twitter. “It was maybe the single-best game I’ve ever been to… I can’t get over how special it was at Oracle last night.”

It was especially \, Kaul said, after Klay’s three in the fourth. And, funny enough, after Jerebko’s three early in the quarter.

Another fan wrote that it brought him back to “simpler times.”

“It definitely reminded me of the pre-KD days and even the 13-14 Warriors when we played the Clippers,” Tarak Duggal messaged me on Twitter. “When [Steph] had the chance to take over… it was a reminder of what it used to be like. I grew up with Steph and watched the Warriors suck when he was drafted, and then grew up with him turning the Warriors around. There was a very emotional feeling with him last night.”

The heart of that team is there and is always there, but because of their utter dominance they don’t get as many opportunities to show it. And even when they do it's overlooked because of their over-the-top talent.

Winning is fun. Winning cures (almost) all. But winning and everything that comes with it is exhausting. And as much as this injury takes away a nearly unbeatable wrinkle in the Warriors’ game, it adds something they have been missing, and maybe something that they will need to close out this three-peat against some new postseason foes. And its a little bit of a reminder once again of where this – championships, parades, talk of trophies, a billion-dollar money machine on the San Francisco pier – all started.

With their lack of depth and run of injuries major and minor, they will need Durant back to take this thing the distance.

But it almost feels fated that this group would need to put together another one of these games to beat this Houston team in the last season at Oracle, just like they have so many times before.

There really is a comfort in this vulnerability.