Data story · NBA Playoffs
The Warriors dynasty in the NBA Finals, told in strips.
Golden State played six Finals in eight seasons and won four. In four of the six, they did not lead at the end of a single minute of Game 3, and they still won two of those series.
Every strip on this page is a real NBA Playoffs strip from the Huezle app, drawn by the app’s own code. More about NBA Playoffs.
How to read the strips
Each strip is one game, tip-off on the left and the final buzzer on the right, one band per minute. A band shows the score at the end of that minute: purple when the away team was leading, gold when the home team was leading, and pale when it was close. So in a game at Golden State the Warriors are gold, and on the road they are purple. Check the label for where each game was played.
The Game 3 problem
Across 34 Finals games from 2015 to 2022 the Warriors won 21. Game 3 was where it kept going wrong: in 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2022 they trailed or were level at every one of its 48 minute marks.
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
Then the strips flip. In Game 4 in Cleveland the Warriors led at 41 of the 48 minute marks and won by 21; they won Game 5 by 13 at home and Game 6 by eight on the road for the title. Seven years later, against Boston, the story was the same: a Game 3 they never led, then three wins in a row, two of them in Boston.
2016: the series that got away
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
After four games Golden State led 3–1. Cleveland then won Game 5 by 15 in Oakland and Game 6 by 14 at home, a game in which the Warriors trailed at every minute mark.
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
The whole series is drawn in the 2016 Finals game by game.
2017 and 2018: eight wins in nine games
With Kevin Durant added to the roster, the Warriors went 16–1 through the 2017 playoffs, the best record of any team in the data; the one loss was Game 4 of the Finals, by 21. The next year they swept Cleveland, and Game 2 is the most one-sided strip of the dynasty.
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
2019 and 2022
Toronto ended the run in 2019, with Durant out injured for most of the series. In the last game the Warriors led at only 14 of the 48 minute marks. Three years later they were back, and the opening game against Boston is the strangest strip of the six series.
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
No run without a bad night. Only the 2018 sweep has no defeat in it. More Finals are on NBA Finals history in colour, and four of these series were against LeBron James’s Cleveland, covered in LeBron James in the Finals.
Huezle shows you a real Finals game like these, without the names. Can you tell a Warriors strip from the colours alone?
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhoneQuestions
How many NBA Finals did the Warriors win in their dynasty?
Four of six: 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022. They lost to Cleveland in 2016 and to Toronto in 2019.
What was the Warriors’ record in the NBA Finals from 2015 to 2022?
Twenty-one wins and thirteen losses across 34 Finals games.
What was the Warriors’ best playoff run?
In this data, 2017: sixteen wins and one loss, the only defeat coming in Game 4 of the Finals in Cleveland.
More guides
- The NBA Finals since 2011, in five strips.Sixteen NBA Finals from 2011 to 2026 in five minute-by-minute strips: the Heat years, Warriors against Cavaliers, and a run of new champions.
- LeBron James in the NBA Finals, 2011–2020.LeBron James’s nine NBA Finals from 2011 to 2020 with the Heat, Cavaliers and Lakers, told through six minute-by-minute strips of the games that defined them.
- NBA tip-off trivia: last postseason, minute by minute.The 2026 NBA playoffs as strips of colour before the new season: the Knicks’ 29-point Finals comeback, a 61-point lead, a road Game 7 and a double overtime.
- Every NBA Finals Game 7 since 2011.The three NBA Finals that went to Game 7 since 2011 — Heat v Spurs 2013, Cavaliers v Warriors 2016, Thunder v Pacers 2025 — drawn as minute-by-minute strips.
Now try naming one yourself.
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