It was probably the darkest day of Steph Curry's NBA career.
June 19, 2016. Father's Day. The 73-win Warriors had a chance to cap off the greatest season in the history of the NBA.
Instead, the Warriors completed the greatest collapse in the history of the league, blowing a three-games-to-one series lead with a 93-89 loss in Game 7 to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Curry had a chance to tie the game with 30 seconds remaining. He missed a 3-pointer. LeBron James would make a free throw to push the lead to four and Curry would miss another 3-pointer in the final seconds to seal the loss.
In an interview with ESPN, Curry opened up about the pressure he faced in that game and specifically about that moment when he missed the potential game-tying shot over Kevin Love.
"I'm like, 'I just need a little space' -- and that's where I started to rush," Curry told ESPN's Jackie MacMullan. "I look back and think I could have easily gone around [Love] and gotten a 2, and we could have gotten a stop, and then I could come back down and hit another shot, and we win another championship, instead of me going for the hero shot, which I felt like I could make. That was a shot where I was not under control. And it cost us a championship."
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Curry told MacMullan that he learned a valuable lesson from that tough moment.
"Don't ever make the mistake of rushing like that again," Curry said.
Since that dreadful moment, Curry and the Warriors have added Kevin Durant and bounced back to win the next two NBA championships. On Thursday, Golden State begins its quest for a three-peat.
While Curry and the Warriors have managed to put June 19, 2016 in the rearview mirror, it's a moment they'll never forget. It's a feeling they don't want to forget. It's what fuels them to keep winning games at a historic clip.
