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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS VS. WARRIORSJune 8, 2018Stephen CurryCleveland, Ohio - Postgame 4 Warriors - 108, Cavaliers - 85 Q. Congratulations. Winning two championships back-to-back is extremely hard, and then with the sweep, what's the feeling? What's going through your mind right now? STEPHEN CURRY: I'm just extremely grateful for the team I get to play for and just all that's gone into being back as champs again. This year was pretty crazy in general with all that we went through with injuries and the struggles throughout the regular season. Looking at this playoff journey, we knew it wasn't going to be as easy as last year when it comes to our record and things like that. Then the challenges that faced us. In October we wanted to be back in this moment, and a lot went into it. It's a great feeling to be back here. Q. After so many ups and downs, as you mentioned, you got to accomplish the ultimate goal for a basketball player. What is your message to kids, to kids who dream big and want to accomplish a dream, but they're facing so many difficulties? STEPHEN CURRY: You just have confidence in yourself no matter what. That's the thing that's helped me to get to where I'm at. Even if you have a bad shooting night or dealing with injuries or whatever, whatever the challenge is, the confidence in yourself and the people that you put around you that can breathe life into you and breathe that confidence into you, that's what makes it all worth it. That's the moments that you appreciate, being able to see the end goal, win or lose, really, as long as you give your best effort. Q. You're locked up now for a few years, and K.D. has made it pretty clear that he's not going anywhere. The core's going to be together it looks like for a while. You've won three out of four. It could have been four in a row. As weird as it sounds, do you almost get the feeling like you guys may be just getting started? STEPHEN CURRY: I haven't really thought about it, to be honest. Any question that kind of talks about the future and whatnot, you don't want to cheat the moment. So we'll have plenty of time over the summer to talk about what next year's going to look like and what it's going to take for us to get back to this stage next year. I know K.D. said what he said, and we know what contract situations are, but I really just am happy to be a champ again. So it's kind of hard to put myself in any other kind of mental space right now. Q. Congrats. STEPHEN CURRY: Gracias. Q. Three out of four, do you consider your Warriors a dynasty, and where do you rank your team amongst the greatest of all time? STEPHEN CURRY: No idea. Not for me to answer that question. I just know what we've been able to accomplish is really meaningful and something that not many players have been able to experience. So wherever that puts us in the conversation in the history of the NBA or, you know, titles around dynasty and all that type of stuff, I'm a three-time champ. We've got a lot of three-time, two-time champs in there, and we'll have plenty of time in our lives to discuss that later. So want to keep this thing going as long as we can. Q. Your coach, your teammates, you often talk about playing with joy. I want to know what that means to you, to play with joy, and is it difficult for you to find that as you go through the sort of fourth grind? How do you find that as you go through this process again and again? STEPHEN CURRY: That's kind of just part of me specifically, that's part of who I am and how I play the game. I've always had that kind of disposition to smile and laugh and joke and be free out there. I think that's contagious throughout our organization and our team. You've got to blend that and that kind of carefree attitude with discipline and hard work that goes into it. I think for me, just in general, it's an appreciation of everybody that you get to play with out there on the floor and what they all mean and the value they bring to winning a championship. So I don't think any of us take ourselves too seriously, and we just appreciate what we get to do for a living. Coach does a great job of keeping that perspective as we go through -- I should say as we've gone through each of these four title runs. Win or lose, we appreciate just what we get to do every single day. Q. You guys live in a world where accolades are always the way people are defined. You've now played four straight Finals, brilliantly at times, and still are without a Finals MVP. I get the sense that you could care less. How is it that you could care less, and what does it say about the locker room unselfishness that permeates the franchise, and how did that happen? STEPHEN CURRY: I don't know, I mean, individual accolades never -- they're awesome and when you get to experience what that feels like, it's kind of a validation of all the hard work that you put into it, yeah, there is a sense of pride around those things. But when it comes to me looking at myself in the mirror after every game, after every season, and know I played my best -- or I should say I gave my best effort and had the right intentions and really appreciated every day that I got to play -- and I can go in the locker room right now and look at every one of my teammates in the face and have that sense of pride of what I was able to do out there on the floor and how I can help my team win a championship, that's all that matters to me. K.D.'s been amazing these last two years, especially in The Finals, and so deserving of back-to-back Finals MVPs. I'm going to be his biggest fan in there with what he's able to do. I think the biggest thing we appreciate in the locker room is, again, what everybody brings to the table and we kind of unlock the greatness out of each other. I can put my head on the pillow tonight and -- actually, I might not go to sleep. When I do go to sleep, put my head on the pillow and understand I had a great year, had a great Finals and I'm a champ. Q. You have hundreds of millions of fans in China. First off, congratulations. STEPHEN CURRY: Thank you. Q. You've got already three championships and two MVPs. Looks like the only thing missing is Finals MVP. What is your opinion on that? And what do you think of the performance of K.D. for this Final this year? STEPHEN CURRY: I kind of just answered that. But, yeah, I guess if I get another opportunity next year to come back into The Finals, I'm going to have the same attitude about winning a championship and whatever happens, happens. At the end of the day, it's not going to define my career. I've done a lot and accomplished a lot and done it with some great teammates. So definitely happy with where I'm at. Q. Going into the '14-'15 season, you guys had come off a nice run, and I think you made it to the second round. Can you honestly say, sitting now, did you see this coming? Did you see this team thinking that year we could run two, three championships off? What was it like going into that season for you guys? STEPHEN CURRY: 2015 when -- two years prior we played San Antonio in the second round and had a pretty good series. We lost in six, but we showed a lot about our potential. The following year we lost in seven to the Clippers in the first round and kind of -- I guess it kind of still validated that climb that we were on. Coming into that 2015 season, we had supreme confidence that we could take that next step to become a championship-winning team. That was Coach Kerr's first year, obviously, and we had established a culture, an identity, and a core and got the job done. Did I envision this happening? No. Because kind of the way I go through every year is you kind of just enjoy the moment. But it's not surprising how much work we put in, the talent that we have that we're in this position. 2015 was a big year for us to get over the hump so we were kind of playing with house money at that point. You've got a championship, and you can get greedy at that point. Q. I guess I'm asking the question from the Cleveland angle. At that time LeBron is coming back from Miami to Cleveland and they're making all these moves. Maybe from an outsider's standpoint they're thinking, wow, we've set ourselves up maybe to win a couple titles here, and yet that didn't happen because of you guys. I mean, I guess you've kind of answered that. But did you imagine that you guys would be four times in a row against LeBron? STEPHEN CURRY: No. There's so much that goes into just getting to this stage and playing in The Finals. So there is a reason last year was the first time two teams had gone three in a row in The Finals and this year being the fourth. The ball has to bounce your way a couple times. You've got to have the right mix and chemistry and all that type of stuff. But at the end of the day, that's why you roll the ball out and play. Thankfully three out of the four years we got it done. Q. I was just hoping for your perspective on the job Steve did this season, and kind of the impossible task of motivating you guys during the regular season and his different tacts of killing you guys in Indiana and some of that, and how you thought he did? STEPHEN CURRY: Just as a human being, what he has gone through physically in the last three years, and for him just to show up every day, fight the symptoms he was fighting and give us his best effort, his best energy, and like you said, have a perspective around managing this year differently than any of the last three because of the cumulative effect of this many games, just the length of the season in general, he was a master at that. Obviously, he set the tone his first year of how we were going to play, the vibe in practice, playing music, enjoying coming to work every day. His purposeful over-communication when it comes to all 15 guys, knowing their role and how things can change throughout the course of a year. Making sure everybody was ready. But also just an appreciation for, I guess, him having been in this situation playing as a player, knowing how to deal with other humans with just the roller coaster ride of emotion that can kind of come with this journey. He's been amazing. He's got a great staff that kind of all feed off of him, and there's a true kind of authenticity about him that is refreshing. Q. Couple years ago after you won a first title you made a remark about you hope the locker room still smelled like champagne when you come back and visit. Cleveland didn't like that. They ended up winning that next year and did the same thing on your court. Can you describe the feeling how it is to celebrate on somebody else's court in front of all their fans? STEPHEN CURRY: It's different just because, yeah, it's just you and your families out there. Some of their fans stayed and booed us the whole time we were out there. So kind of part of the territory. But thinking back to 2015, that was our first one, didn't really know how to celebrate and just enjoyed the moment. Everything kind of came pretty fast. Last year was different. Being at Oracle, there was just a different energy in the building, and that was something to remember. But this year, just to get to the finish line, I didn't care what arena we were in. We wanted to just be the champs, see that trophy again, and enjoy each other's company out there and just have fun. And that's what happened. That's why I'm soaking wet right now, and I'm going to enjoy every minute of this. Q. Three-times NBA champion. How are you feeling right now? Are you used to this feeling, or does it still feel fresh to you? STEPHEN CURRY: It feels so fresh. When you get on the podium and you realize all the hard work that you put into it and all that you've been through led to that moment, it never gets dull, it never gets boring. It's always just a freshness about that moment. You kind of don't know what to say. You see all your teammates, you're hugging them. You're dapping them up, you're looking for your family. Everything that goes into me being able to do what I do for a living and to aspire to win championships, all of those emotions kind of come crashing down in that moment, and that's why I've got a big smile on my face right now. I'm going to try to hold on to it as long as I can. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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