The Warriors aren't too proud to need each other, and its leading them to yet another potential title run

Deep down in the ocean, where darkness and pressure feeds on the unprepared, sea anemones and hermit crabs survive by relying on each other.

Hermit crabs, who are vulnerable to larger predators, pick up anemones and place them on their backs to ward off larger predators and protect their body when they lose their shell.

The anemones, who can’t move much at all and struggle to feed on their own, get to feed on the leftovers from the hermit crabs and travel to new and potentially better environments.

The hermit crab and anemone need each other and they know it and embrace it, because for them survival is king.

In an NBA full of lonesome hermit crabs who say “f*ck my shell I don’t need,” anemones who try to eat the hermit crab that picks them up and crabs that let anemones go because they feel like they are holding them back, the core players on the Golden State Warriors embrace the symbiotic relationships amongst themselves, and survive and thrive because of it.

Their 118-113 Game 6 win over the Houston Rockets, clinching their fifth consecutive Western Conference Finals and 21st straight playoff series with a road win, was another perfect encapsulation of their mutual understanding that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

And it’s this understanding that has turned this core group – Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and even Shaun Livingston – into The Franchise Killers, kings of the superteams, the breakers of championship windows and the closers of title runs.

It started from the jump in game six.

Down Kevin Durant and Demarcus Cousins, Klay Thompson and the bench carried the team as Stephen Curry started 0-5 in the first half, scoring 0 points and only playing 12 minutes after falling into early foul trouble.

But the two-time MVP recovered, closing the game with a virtuoso performance of 33 second-half points and some classic pick-and-roll with Draymond Green, while Thompson and Andre Iguodala each made some big threes and difference-making defensive plays.

After another iconic Curry three, Thompson’s backbreaker with 36 seconds left and eight more Curry free throws in the last 30 seconds, the Warriors had once again knocked the Rockets out of the playoffs and rejoiced in their revelry.

Curry and his threes will get the props for his 23-point fourth (or hate for his terrible opening, depending on who you ask), but he was only great for 24 of the 34 minutes he played, while everyone else that stepped on the floor in blue and gold was great all the way through. But Curry’s great was – and always is – more than enough in those last 24 minutes to make up for the first 10.

But he clearly has not minded that he has taken a back seat to Kevin Durant at times, and his teammates, Durant and Cousins included, don’t care if and when gets the praise (at least not enough to get in the way of winning titles). They join in on it.

Curry, Thompson and Green all took time right after the game to point out that they will need Durant to get through the rest of the playoff, immediately after completing easily one of their most impressive wins in the historic five-year run. Curry, who scored the most fourth-quarter points in the playoffs since Allen Iverson, even went as far to say that Durant is the best player in the world to Scott Van Pelt.

The pride that comes with this team is a collective pride.

Praise is subjective, respect comes and goes, but championship banners hang forever, and a long time ago these Warriors figured that out.

And they’ve been picking apart teams with lone sharks and crabs who think they’re lobsters for the past six years.

The Lob City Clippers, who couldn’t compete with the Warriors, even after beating them in 2014, eventually trading away Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.

The Grit n’ Grind Grizzlies, who went 55-27 and were up 2-1 in the series in the second round in 2015 when they lost to the Warriors and who haven’t won more than 43 games since and have only Mike Conley left from that era.

The Oklahoma City Thunder, who surrendered a 3-1 series lead and lost their franchise player to the very team that beat them in 2016 and have gone 4-12 in the playoffs since.

The Spurs, who could not rebound after losing Kawhi and dropping the WCF 0-4 to the Warriors in 2017, eventually having to trade away Kawhi and losing in the first round each of the last two years after an unprecedented run of contention.

The Cavs, who lost in 2017 and 2018 in more ways than one, losing two consecutive Finals and a superstar in each of the following summers.

And now the Rockets, who have lost to the Warriors – once without Curry and now three times without Durant – four of the last five postseasons and who have now been taken out on their home floor for the second year in a row.

They have taken out teams with lesser constitutions and fractured rosters.

This is what the great dynasties figure out. The Showtime Lakers. The Auerbach Celtics. Jordan’s Bulls. It may be clear to the outside world who the best players are, and in today’s era of Twitter, First Take and men and women who hide behind the veil of a podcast, people will pore for lifetimes over who deserves the credit, who is to blame and who is the the clear-cut leader.

But these Warriors? These title-winning, franchise-killing, symbiotic Warriors? They decided a long time ago that winning rings was the only important thing.

Because they know that to reach the trophy on the other side of that vast ocean for the third straight time and the fourth time in the last five years (they would be the first team to do that since the 1960’s Celtics), there is no room for being shellfish.

Zachary Engberg1 Comment