This might be the most magical phrase in sports, athletic drama at its purest: Game 7.
Win or go home, on both sides. That urgency makes the NCAA basketball Tournament wildly popular, and the theater acquires extra cachet as the culmination of a long, back-and-forth series, with sustained tension and crazy momentum swings.
Monday night’s winner-take-all affair between the Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals illustrates another captivating element of Game 7s: They don’t happen often. This will be only the sixth Game 7 for the Warriors since they moved west in 1962, and their first at home in 40 years.