It wasn’t that long ago when Golden State Warriors fans booed team owner Joe Lacob at Oracle Arena — at a 
Chris Mullin jersey retirement ceremony, no less. Lacob had failed to deliver on some bold promises at that point, and – coupled with the trade of local favorite Monta Ellis – he made for a convenient target at the time.’
A lot has changed in the Bay Area in the three years since, as anyone at Game 5 of the Western Conference finals couldn’t help but notice Wednesday night. The Warriors are in the NBA Finals for the first time in 40 years, sending the Houston Rockets home for the summer with a 104-90 victory.
And nobody enjoyed it more than the guy with an NBA Finals cap on his head and a Pepsi in hand.
“I’m ecstatic for them,” Lacob said of the fans who stuck by the team through the down times. “I was a fan here, too, people have to understand — from the ‘80s, you know. So I’ve been in that position. I know what they’ve gone through. This team wasn’t very good for a long, long time.”
Now the Warriors are a very good team, and as a result of some good moves and good fortune, they’re in position to stay there for a while.
In case you hadn’t noticed, this is not your older brother’s NBA. And the Warriors are one of the teams that gets it. They have a franchise player in Stephen Curry and two other legit All-Star talents in Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. They can shoot the 3-ball and defend against it. They have athletic types such as Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala who can be mixed and matched at either end of the court.
And in Steve Kerr and his staff, they have coaches who understand the importance of ball movement and team defense. They don’t look the part on paper necessarily, but there’s a reason why the Warriors have won 79 games with at least four more to be played this season.
For their part, the Rockets also had of those same things. In the final analysis, they didn’t have nearly enough of them.
“Six years is a long time to wait,” Curry said of his frustration. “Obviously, the Bay Area has been waiting 40-plus years. I think it’s time.”
Now the Warriors will face LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, their biggest (only?) test of the postseason.
James has that look again, but never mind him for now. The key to the series will be Cavs All-Star guard Kyrie Irving and his sore left knee and strained right foot. As dominant as James has been recently, he can’t beat a team as deep and talented as the Warriors by himself. He needs someone to ride shotgun, and Irving is the only one capable of it.
Irving and the Cavaliers will not have played for eight days before the June 4 opener, and the extended layoff could not have come at a better time for them. But once Irving returns to the court again — he will be matched against Curry a lot of the time – all that wear and tear will begin to accumulate again.
So the big question isn’t how Irving will feel at the start of the series, but what he will be like at the end of it.
As drop-dead good as the Warriors have been this season, they have lived a charmed life along the way. They’ve been unusually healthy, something they had not been in recent years. Somehow, they avoided the Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs, the two teams that figured to give them the most trouble in the playoffs.
Their luck changed dramatically in a span of three days. In Game 4, Curry took a horrific fall that turned him into a human bruise. He started the next game with a sleeve on his right shooting elbow before he did away with it after a slow start.
The speculation was that Curry might be hurt even more than he let on earlier in the day, when he admitted to reporters, “My whole right side took the brunt of that force — and my head. It’s basically like a bruise all the way up and down your body that you’ve just got to deal with.”
In the series clincher, Iguodala suffered “a little stinger” when Rockets big man Dwight Howard rocked him on a pick in the 
neck area. The far bigger concern was the status of Thompson, who was kneed in the head by Rockets forward Trevor Ariza earlier in the game. After Thompson required three stitches to close a laceration on his ear, he was cleared to play – only to develop concussion-like symptoms after the game.
It was an eventual night for Thompson, who regained his shooting stroke in the last two games after shooting just 18-of-49 in the first three. He finished with 20 points and no doubt would have had more if Kerr hadn’t made a rookie mistake in the third quarter, when the coach kept him in the game long enough to pick up his fifth foul.
“We got a week off or close to it,” Thompson said. “I’ll be all right. I’ll get my health back.”
At the start of the week, the Warriors would have been an easier pick in the series. But just like that, the Splash Brothers have become the Bruise Brothers, while Irving has been able to stay off his feet for a while. Now this one has seven games written all over it.
Paul Ladewski is a veteran Chicago sports journalist who recently relocated to the Bay Area and a contributor to SheridanHoops.com.