The Golden State Warriors are through to their fifth straight NBA Finals after a 119-117 overtime win over the Portland Trail Blazers.

Stephen Curry and Draymond Green combined to claim the game-clinching score in Portland.

The pair produced triple-double performances as the defending champions ensured they swept the best-of-seven Western Conference Finals series 4-0.

They will face either the Milwaukee Bucks or Toronto Raptors in the Finals.

Golden State join the Boston Celtics - who made 10 straight NBA Finals between 1957-66, winning nine of them - as the only team ever to reach at least five consecutive NBA Finals after winning their 11th consecutive play-off series.

"I hope it doesn't go unnoticed," said Warriors coach Steve Kerr. "Five straight Finals hasn't been done since the '60s, hasn't been done for a reason. It's very, very difficult." </s> LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Two-time defending NBA champions Golden State qualified for their fifth straight NBA Finals on Monday (May 20) with a 119-117 overtime victory over the Trail Blazers in Portland.

The Warriors swept the best-of-seven Western Conference finals in four games and will battle for the title starting on May 30 against either the Milwaukee Bucks or Toronto Raptors. </s> Reigning champions the Golden State Warriors completed a 4-0 sweep of the Portland Trail Blazers to seal their place in the NBA Finals for a fifth successive year.

Golden State, champions in 2015, 2017 and 2018, were pushed all the way in game four on Monday night but eventually saw off battling Portland 119-117 after overtime in Oregon.

The Warriors will now face either Milwaukee or Toronto in the Finals, with the Bucks currently 2-1 up in their series.

The Trail Blazers had looked on course to salvage a lifeline in the Western Conference play-off final after establishing a 17-point lead late in the third quarter.

But the Warriors fought back to send the match to overtime, where they clinched victory after Portland point guard Damian Lillard failed to sink a three-point attempt in the final seconds.

Stephen Curry and Draymond Green starred for the visitors at Moda Cente, becoming the first team-mates to each record triple-doubles in the same NBA play-off game.

Curry finished with 37 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists, while Green weighed in with 18 points, 14 boards and 11 assists.

For Portland, Meyers Leonard poured in 30 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, Lillard contributed 28 points and 12 assists while CJ McCollum added 26 points. </s> The 2019 NBA Finals between the Toronto Raptors and Golden State Warriors will be historic in several ways.

Toronto is making its NBA Finals debut, and it will be the first time the league’s championship series will feature games played outside of the United States. Golden State has reached the Finals for the fifth consecutive season, a feat accomplished only by the Boston Celtics, who went to 10 Finals in a row from 1957-66.

Game 1 is tonight at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto (9 p.m., ABC).

The Warriors, the top seed in the Western Conference, can become only the third franchise to win three consecutive titles in the past 50 years (the others are the Bulls from 1991-93 and 1996-98 and the Lakers from 2000-02). Golden State has won the title in three of the past four seasons.

The Warriors have won six NBA Championships, tied with the Bulls for third place all-time, behind the Celtics (17) and Lakers (16).

The Raptors, who finished second in the Eastern Conference but defeated top-seeded Milwaukee in six games in the conference finals, have won at least 50 games in each of the past four seasons and swept the two-game season series from the Warriors for the first time in 17 years.

Warriors star Kevin Durant will miss Game 1 due to the calf injury that has idled him the past five games (Golden State is 5-0 without him). DeMarcus Cousins (torn quad) is listed as questionable.

Kawhi Leonard is averaging 31.2 points per game in the playoffs for Toronto. Stephen Curry is averaging 27.3 points for Golden State.

Join the conversation in the comments </s> The Golden State Warriors are favored to win Game 6 of the NBA Finals Thursday night at Oracle Arena, while the Toronto Raptors are favored to win the franchise's first NBA championship in Game 7 on Sunday night in Toronto.

According to bookmaker.eu, the Warriors are -140 to win Game 6, while the Raptors are at -350 to win the series.

When the series began, the Warriors were favored to win in five or six games, but that was before they went down 3-1 and then lost Kevin Durant for the remainder of the series with a torn Achilles'. Durant had surgery on Wednesday in New York and has begun the clock on his rehab.

Now Steph Curry and the Warriors will try to win the last game ever held at Oracle Arena and try to force a Game 7 Sunday night.

"Protect our home court, feed off our crowd's energy, play for K and try to keep our season alive so there's a lot of things that you can tap into," Curry told reporters.

These were the odds to win MVP before the series began: </s> The Golden State Warriors look to sweep away the Portland Trail Blazers and clinch a fifth straight NBA Finals berth.

The Golden State Warriors stand on the brink of a fifth consecutive appearance in the NBA Finals, and a chance at winning a third straight championship, and all they have to do is close out the Portland Trail Blazers in Game Four of their Western Conference Final series on Monday night. No NBA team has appeared in more than four consecutive NBA Finals series since since the Boston Celtics ended a streak of 10 in a row with the 1966 Final, as recounted by the San Francisco Chronicle. And only four teams other than the Warriors have accomplished the feat of making the Finals four years in a row since 1966. The Warriors will try to punch that ticket in the game that will live stream from the Rose Garden.

To find out how to watch a live stream of the Golden State Warriors vs. Portland Trail Blazers fourth and potentially final game of their NBA Western Conference playoff series, use the streaming information at the bottom of this article. The matchup gets underway at 6 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time at the 19,980-seat Moda Center at the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon, on Monday, May 20.

That start time is 9 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 8 p.m. Central. In the United Kingdom, the Blazers-Warriors Game Two tipoff time will be 2 a.m. British Summer Time on Tuesday, May 21.

The Warriors also made a bit of history in Game Three, rallying from 13 points down to win the game — making them the first team in NBA playoff history to win back-to-back games in which they trailed by at least 13, according to NBA.com.

The Warriors will be missing three star players for the potentially decisive game, however with Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins, and Andre Iguodala all expected to be in street clothes for the game, according to SB Nation.

As for Portland, they must win not only to stay alive, but to have a chance at accomplishing something no NBA team has ever done — come back to win a playoff series after falling behind 3-0.

“Obviously it’s frustrating,” Portland star Damian Lillard told NBA.com. “You look at the numbers and there’s a slim chance of you winning the series like that, but we’ve got a lot to play for. Obviously you never know when the first time it’s going to happen. We could be the first team to do it.”

To watch the Golden State Warriors vs. Portland Trail Blazers NBA conference semifinal Game Four do-or-die matchup live stream online from the Pacific Northwest, log in to WatchESPN, the online streaming service offered by the sports broadcasting giant ESPN. WatchESPN is free of charge to anyone with login credentials from a cable or satellite television provider and is available through the ESPN and WatchESPN apps for mobile devices, as well as on set-top streaming boxes, such as the Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire.

Another way to watch the Golden State Warriors vs. Portland Trail Blazers game stream live for free and without a cable subscription is for fans to sign up for a free trial of an internet streaming TV package, such as DirecTV Now, Sling TV, or YouTube TV. Those services require credit card information and subscription fees — but each offers a seven-day free trial, and that means during the week-long time frame, fans can stream the Warriors vs. Blazers game — and all other live NBA Playoff games in that period — for free.

To watch the Golden State Warriors vs. Portland Trail Blazers matchup in the United Kingdom, viewers can tune into Sky Sports Arena. For a complete list of broadcast and live streaming sources in dozens of other countries around the globe, see the listings at NBA.com. </s> The Golden State Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 129-120 to win their second NBA Championship in three seasons with a 4-1 finals series victory.

The Warriors, who beat Cleveland in the 2015 finals only to lose to them in 2016 after squandering a 3-1 series lead, went a record-setting 15 victories and just one loss in the playoffs.

Kevin Durant led the way for the Warriors with 39 points, with Stephen Curry contributing 34. </s> And now, they wait.

The Golden State Warriors have gotten used to going to the NBA Finals, and their win in Portland on Monday night clinched their fifth consecutive trip. They've also gotten used to waiting for those finals to begin, with long layoffs after the Western Conference finals having become their norm.

By the time Game 1 of the NBA Finals arrives in either Milwaukee or Toronto on May 30, it'll be a 10-day gap between games for the Warriors. It's not the longest in NBA history, but it matches the length of the break that the Warriors handled in 2017, and this marks the third time in this five-year run of finals trips that they've had at least a week off.

"Happy to get a little rest before we have to play again," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.

It is much-needed rest, too.

The Warriors clinched the series in Portland without Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins and Andre Iguodala — all sidelined by injuries. There's no way of knowing yet if Durant and Cousins will be back in time for the finals, either. Plenty of other Warriors are dealing with bumps and bruises as well.

Accruing rust is always a major concern during days without games, but the Warriors surely feel the obvious advantage — rest — outweighs any drawbacks right now — especially after they were stretched to seven games by Houston last year in the West finals and only had two days off before the NBA Finals.

"We definitely want to get our guys healthy," Warriors forward Draymond Green said. "We need to get Andre back healthy, DeMarcus and Kevin. We need those guys going into the finals. That's our hope, that we can get all three of those guys back moving forward."

Down by 17 with less than two minutes to play in the third quarter at Portland, the easiest thing for the Warriors would have been to let off the gas and try to clinch the series at Oracle Arena on Wednesday night.

Instead, they turned a 95-78 deficit into a 119-117 overtime win — outscoring the Blazers 41-22 in the final 19 minutes of the game.

"We could have said Game 5 was our game," Warriors star Stephen Curry said. "But we saw how long that break was going to be and we wanted to take advantage of it."

It's a long break, for certain. But it's not a record-setting one.

The longest gap between the conference finals and NBA Finals came in 1982, when the Los Angeles Lakers sat around for 12 days before beginning their series against Philadelphia.

"The players are bored and just want to play," then-Lakers coach Pat Riley said on the eve of that series. "It's been so long since we played, I just hope we remember how."

They did remember: The Lakers won Game 1, and ultimately prevailed in six games.

The Warriors' layoff this season marks the 26th time that a team will have at least a week before the end of the conference finals and the start of the NBA Finals — and if Milwaukee wins the next two games of the East title matchup, the Bucks would get added to the list as well. The earliest that the Bucks could oust Toronto and win the East is Thursday; the finals start the following Thursday.

Teams with at least a one-week gap before Game 1 of the NBA Finals are 14-11 in the series.

"The NBA Finals have an experience with it — it's such an emotional roller-coaster," Warriors guard Klay Thompson said. "It's nice to get away from the game a little bit before it starts, because emotions run high and it takes a lot out of you."

The long break certainly beats the alternative — no days off at all.

In 1960 and 1961, the St. Louis Hawks earned their trip to the NBA Finals with home wins in Game 7 of what was then called the Western Division finals. The Hawks would play the Boston Celtics in both of those title series — and got zero days rest before the finals. They'd win Game 7 at home, get on a plane and get to Boston to start the NBA Finals the very next day.

Both times, they got blown out in Game 1.

Both times, they would lose the series as well.

"Tiredness was St. Louis' 'out' in this one," Celtics coach Red Auerbach said after the Game 1 win in 1961.

For the Warriors, at least that won't be an issue this year. </s> LOS ANGELES, United States, May 21 – Stephen Curry and Draymond Green both posted triple-doubles to power the Golden State Warriors to a 119-117 overtime victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday and into a fifth straight NBA Finals.

The two-time defending NBA champions swept the Blazers in four games in the best-of-seven Western Conference finals.

The only other team to reach five straight NBA Finals was the Boston Celtics, when they went to a record 10 in a row from 1957 to 1966.

“I hope it doesn’t go unnoticed or underrated — five straight finals hasn’t been done since the 60s,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “It hasn’t been done for a reason, it’s really, really difficult and so I just can’t say enough about the competitive desire of the group of guys that we have here.”

The Warriors will battle for the title starting on May 30 against either the Milwaukee Bucks or Toronto Raptors, aiming to become the first team since the Los Angeles Lakers of 2000, 2001 and 2002 to three-peat as champions.

Curry and Green became the first teammates in league history to have triple-doubles in the same post-season game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Curry finished with 37 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists, while Green had his second straight triple-double — posting double digits in three key statistical categories — with 18 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists.

Fittingly, Curry and Green combined on the game-winning basket in overtime, Curry feeding Green for a three-pointer that pushed Golden State to a 119-115 lead with 39.6 seconds left in overtime.

“Obviously in that situation we want Steph to have the ball, we want Steph or Klay (Thompson) to take the shot,” Green said.

“But they were swarming them. So I was just talking to them ‘Watch out, watch out.’

“When he passed me the ball, I just let it go. When I shot it, it felt good.”

The Trail Blazers had led 69-65 at halftime, and built the lead to 17 in the third quarter — the third straight game in which Portland led by as many as 17 only to come up short.

With veteran Andre Iguodala having joined superstar Kevin Durant and DeMarcus Cousins on the injured list, the Warriors produced a total team effort to rally again.

Thompson scored 17 points while reserve Kevon Looney added 12 points and 14 rebounds and Alfonzo McKinnie chipped in 12 points.

“Being without Kevin these last five games has put us in a really tough spot and our guys stepped up in a big way,” Kerr said. “The group has a fiber to them — when (these) guys go down they find a way to come together and compete and win.”

The Warriors scored the last nine points of the third period to close within 95-87 and knotted the score at 104-104 on Curry’s layup with 4:34 left in regulation.

“We know we can cover 17 points in a matter of three or four minutes,” Green said. “So we always try to keep that mindset — that we’re never out of the game.”

Both teams had a chance to win in regulation, but Curry traveled before draining a three-pointer that didn’t count and Lillard was unable to get through in traffic as time expired with the score tied 111-111.

Portland star Lillard, playing with painful separated ribs, finished with 28 points while unheralded Meyers Leonard led the Trail Blazers with a career-high 30 points and 12 rebounds.

CJ McCollum added 26 for the Trail Blazers, but it wasn’t enough for a team that had fended off elimination twice in their second-round series against the Denver Nuggets.

“We couldn’t get over the hump,” Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts said. “I think it was a demonstration of how good they are and how good they have been over the years — they find a way to win.”
The Golden State Warriors qualify for the NBA Finals for the fifth year in a row by defeating the Portland Trail Blazers, 119–117, in overtime in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals.