Fifteen years ago, Soulja Boy rocked the States to the sound of Crank That, and the Warriors drove NBA fans crazy by knocking out the Mavericks, the best regular-season team, in the first round of the Playoffs. The beautiful epic of an unleashed Golden State team which had succeeded in making the MVP of the season Dirk Nowitzki violent. But watch out for the backlash this year, because as Justin Timberlake sang at the time: What goes around comes back around ».
The Warriors arrive in the Playoffs, knife between their teeth. They have just finished the regular season on a series of fifteen wins in twenty games to snatch eighth place in the West. A dynamic carried by their best player, back from injury: Baron Davis. We are talking to you regarding a time that those under 15 cannot know. Yes, in 2007, Steph Curry is still at university. On April 22, the Playoffs begin, and this atypical team from Golden State travels to the Mavs who impose it. With the best regular season record and future MVP of the season Dirk Nowitzki in its ranks, Dallas is confident. Except that opposite, on the bench of the Warriors, Don Nelson, fired by the Texas franchise the previous summer, will take pleasure in transforming this series into a tactical duel where Avery Johnson, his replacement and former assistant , cannot answer. At the same time, big boy, keeping the same systems from one season to another, it was sure that at some point it would play tricks on you! On the field, the Warriors have gritted teeth: Stephen Jackson and Jason Richardson take pleasure in outsmarting these Mavs, and Don Nelson’s men contain Dirk at performances well below his regular season standard. Golden State is sparkling on the whole series, theupset is all the more magnificent: 4-2 for the Warriors, and the beautiful story of Playoffs between the Bay team and the MVPs begins.
After such a special series, the Dirk is annoyed. The first regulars on vacation in early May? Seriously ? After Golden State’s victory at the Oracle Arena in Game 6, the first European MVP in history returns to the locker room furious and sends a garbage can waltzing into a hallway wall, creating a more than visible hole. Symbol of this achievement and also of the incredible mentality of this emblematic Warriors team, the wall has never been repaired. On the contrary, a few years later, the owners of Golden State even had Dirk sign on a piece of plexi intended to be above the hole. And above that they hung a Playoffs t-shirt « We Believe » of the time. A real page of history inscribed in the walls of Oakland, but which would surely disappear if Warriors found themselves changing rooms. Well not even! The new hall in San Francisco – the Chase Center – has barely emerged from the ground, that the Warriors specifically requested to recreate the same hole in the same lane. A nice touch that touched Dirk Nowitzki, as he expressed it for The Athletic.
“I’m honored if they really want to replicate it. […] To have a place with someone else, outside, it’s pretty cool. For me, this is not a pleasant memory. But it’s still awesome. – Dirk Nowitzki, pour The Athletic
A seemingly insignificant hole, ultimately carries all the values of the Golden State of the time, and especially this mentality ofunderdog. This real crazy team will lay the foundations of a staircase that Golden State has climbed today, with a peak reached seven years ago, by pocketing their fourth title in history in 2015.
The Warriors’ “We Believe” era marked a generation with this spectacular Playoff series. His story is engraved on the walls of the halls of the Warriors, there is no question of forgetting it, but also of reminding it to the adversaries treading the parquet floor of the Chase Center. We wish Luka Doncic to avenge his mentor during these Western Conference Finals rather than having to find himself in five years to sign a new plexiglass plate, fixed in the visitors’ corridor.
