Curry, Warriors Hold Up Their End of Bargain for Dream NBA Finals Matchup

OAKLAND, Calif. — No disrespect to the vaunted, pantheon-residing San Antonio Spurs and all their basketball grace. Best regards to the ensemble-minded but flawed 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks. And godspeed to Derrick Rose, CP3, Kevin Durant, James Harden, et al. Their collective championship yearning will serve us all a purpose in days ahead.

And deepest condolences to fans of 28 teams not named the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers. Next year is only months away.

Deep down, we know the 2014-15 NBA season's manifest destiny was this: the flame-throwing Splash Bros versus LeBron Freakin' James.

In other words, a heaven-sent spectacle with the sport's most prized possession at stake.

The 2015 NBA Finals will be many other things, too: rookie head coaches testing strategies at the game's most prestigious stage. Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry flashing the best handles in the game. Two of the four best offenses in the NBA attacking above and below the rim with style. Breakthrough players like Draymond Green and Tristan Thompson validating max-contract speculation before a national audience.

We'll see a team that coasted through a cush Eastern Conference, and another that made one of the most competitive conferences in recent memory look soft.

The Warriors sealed the dream matchup Wednesday night, a 104-90 Game 5 win over the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Finals, for a 4-1 series win. Curry managed the last laugh over MVP runner-up James Harden, but the game hardly stuck to expected narratives.

This was ugly at best, an uncharacteristically inefficient game for both teams. The Rockets shot a collective 35 percent from the field, only days after torching nets in an absurd Game 4 shooting clinic. James Harden's 13 turnovers only compounded the mediocre shooting night.

After suffering a frightening head contusion in Game 4, Curry looked completely human, if still somewhat off. He ditched an Iverson-esque arm sleeve meant to protect his elbow after halftime and settled into attack-first point guard mode after two quarters of stilted shooting. 

Curry shot just 33 percent from the field and 27 percent from distance. Harrison Barnes picked up slack with the game of his career with a critical 24-point effort. 

The Warriors shot just 40.7 percent on the night, but only the final result mattered to the famously bonkers and championship-starved Oracle Arena crowd. For this tortured Warriors franchise, this was also about securing a trip to the NBA Finals for the first time in 40 years.

The win catapults Curry to the NBA Finals for the first time in his still-young career. It marks the third time in four years the NBA MVP will play in the NBA Finals.

First Look at Cavs-Warriors Finals Matchup

The Warriors will need both Curry and fellow Splash Brother Klay Thompson to live up to their nickname against the Cavaliers, a team that's somehow peaking despite injuries to key players.

All question marks regarding Cleveland's championship viability minus Kevin Love were erased in back-to-back convincing series wins—a 4-2 beatdown of the Bulls in the Eastern Conference Semifinals that really wasn't even close, and a swift deletion of the Atlanta Hawks in the conference finals.

The teams enter the Finals as clear superiors of arbitrary regions, as ESPN noted.

LeBron James and Steph Curry won't guard each other beyond an occasional switched screen, but all eyes will focus on these two beloved superstars. LeBron, with some help at various points, carried the Cavaliers on his shoulders throughout the playoffs. Only Anthony Davis has averaged more points per contest in these playoffs than Curry (29.4 PPG) and James (27.6), and Davis only played four games.

Warriors power forward Draymond Green is the presumed favorite to guard LeBron James, but the Warriors will invariably throw Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala at James. Green's rare combination of quickness and brute has enabled him to fluster LeBron at times in previous matchups.

"He's been here before, plenty of times," Curry said of LeBron. "We're excited about the challenge. He had to win his first one at some point. We've got a home-court advantage we need to capitalize. This is what you dream about."

Assuming Kyrie Irving is healthy and fully recovered from a chronic, bothersome knee issue, he'll at least be part of the solution for hampering Curry. As we've seen throughout the season and playoffs, we can expect the Cavs to aggressively swarm Curry on high pick-and-rolls and trap early and often. How you counter the Warriors counter—whether that be Draymond Green 4-on-3s or perimeter swings to Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes or Andre Iguodala—is the difference between success and utter failure against the Warriors.

The Cavs would be wise to force the ball to Thompson, who never quite found a consistent stroke against the Rockets. But if Barnes or Green are hitting, you throw up your hands.

The Warriors will need to neutralize Tristan Thompson on the glass. Thompson's averaging nearly 10 rebounds per game, and four per game on the offensive end. If Green sticks with LeBron, major pressure falls to Bogut and/or Festus Ezeli, who actually stole key minutes from Bogut in critical moments against the Rockets. 

It's hard to envision any losers in this dream NBA Finals series, but Las Vegas oddsmakers are calling the Warriors six-point favorites out of the gate, according to CBS. It would be too simple to say the team with the better star would win, but with each conference's presumed MVP present in the Finals, maybe not.

Follow Bleacher Report NBA Editor @ChrisTrenchard on Twitter.