As far as a Plan A goes, South Africa's is a decent one: put Dale Steyn, Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi into an attack together, throw in Imran Tahir and sit back. As far as not being able to call upon your Plan A goes, two days out from your first match in a World Cup, against the hosts and favourites is not so decent.

South Africa will be without Steyn tomorrow and against the format's pre-eminent batting order, it is difficult to argue against Faf du Plessis' assessment that it is "a big loss". It is perfectly valid to counter that Steyn with the white ball is not quite as inarguably great as Steyn with the red ball. The counter to that counter is that in this squad, it means South Africa choose between Chris Morris and Dwaine Pretorius as replacement. Capable as both are, neither quite fills the X-factor Steyn's presence provides to the pace attack.

"Yeah, it is a big loss to our team," du Plessis said. "We did expect it when we picked the squad. He wasn't quite - probably about 60 per cent when the squad was picked; so we anticipated for this to happen.

"But yeah, Dale Steyn, a fit Dale Steyn, makes our bowling attack a very, very strong one. So tomorrow will be a little bit of chopping and changing to get a balance that we think can take on England."

Scrambling would not be quite the right way to describe South Africa's response - they are making a deal out of how not a big deal this tournament is - but it will require a reshuffle of the XI and, more importantly, strategy.

Coach Ottis Gibson and du Plessis are not alone around the world in thinking that England's batting fire must be combated by bowling fire: attack, look to take wickets, they come hard, you go harder. To that purpose Steyn is still important - his strike rate (31.9) puts him at eighth in the all-time list of ODI bowlers with at least 100 wickets and 100 ODIs.

"As I said, one of our X-factors, potentially we have is a really, really strong attack in terms of pace. Steyn, Rabada, Ngidi is a real, real threat in English conditions. So that changes. That's Plan A for the World Cup in terms of our balance, what we're looking to achieve. Now it's just a real reshuffle and looking to Plan B and C.

"For us as a leadership group, it's trying to find how can we be most attacking and trying to get wickets. Obviously that was with Dale included but that changed now, so we'll look at setting up our team to try to make sure we can get guys on the team that can get wickets."

Either Morris or Pretorius is an adequate fit, and they bring some depth to the batting as well. Morris hasn't played an ODI for South Africa for a year though he is quicker than Pretorius. An outside punt would be Tabraiz Shamsi's weird and wonderful left-arm wristspin, if for nothing else but the element of surprise and especially if you can recall Kuldeep Yadav's 6 for 25 at Trent Bridge less than a year ago.

But England worked him out pretty quickly and in a very limited sample size of eight innings over the last decade, they go over a run-a-ball against that genre of bowling. One of Morris or Pretorius it will be, neither of whom is Steyn.

Big Picture

Four years of planning, four years of preparation. Forty-four years of hurt and counting. And maybe the chance, at long last, for long-overdue World Cup redemption. But which team are we discussing here? England, the hosts, or South Africa, the challengers?

For there could be no more apt contest with which to launch the 12th Cricket World Cup - the fifth on English soil but the first for 20 years - than a match-up between the two sides with arguably the most torrid World Cup histories of them all.

In the (light-) blue corner … the hosts, the favourites, the perpetual laughing stocks. A team that reached three World Cup finals in the first five editions, lost the lot, and have not won a single knock-out fixture in the three decades since - as if the pain of further rejection has superseded any desire to countenance that long-awaited success.

And in the green-with-yellow-tinges corner, the quadrennial accidents waiting to happen. The team that spent the first four editions of the tournament on the outside looking in, but then - welcomed into the fold from 1992 onwards - somehow hit upon new and ever more gruesome ways to screw up their best-laid plans.

From rain-rules (times two), to last-ball sixes, via the single most storied run-out in World Cup history, South Africa - unlike England - have been a team from which great things have been expected, and on which great calamity has endlessly been bestowed.

Have those expectations now been swapped going into the 2019 edition? South Africa are now the team coasting into the competition with expectations at an all-time low, and the squad are consequently in something approaching a chilled-out frame of mind (although the news that SACA has just instigated legal proceedings against the board may yet be the start of a new means to disrupt that sangfroid).

Instead, it is England about whom the entire world is talking … and about whom everyone is doubtless preparing to burst out laughing if they fail to fulfil their destiny this summer. But, tellingly, no matter how wishful the thinking may be on that front, there is no escaping the notes of respect and trepidation that underpin every mention of the world No.1s.

England's four-year journey from no-hopers to world-beaters has been stunning and well-documented - as many as five players still survive from the team that crashed out in the group stages against Bangladesh four years ago, but it is the transformation in mindset that has been stunning and unequivocal.

It began with Eoin Morgan's insistence, after that 2015 debacle, that things had to change - that England had to embrace players who, in the first instance, weren't afraid to fail, in order to free them up to become the attacking team they needed to be.

And it has continued with an almost Olympian pursuit of batting excellence. Citius, altius, fortius has been the message from the top. If in doubt, go for your shots. And if it goes wrong - as it has done on a handful of notable occasions - go again. England have made it their business to embrace their status as favourites, and to absorb the pressure that comes with that status, by wearing their learning lightly and projecting an impenetrable confidence in their overall direction of travel.

There's every possibility that England will once again fall short as they attempt to claim the silverware that eluded the likes of Gooch and Botham, Gatting and Gower. But the round-robin format mitigates against one-off accidents - and two notable notches in this team's recent history stand as testaments to the fact that no contest is over until it is over.

The brutality of England's defeat in the World T20 final in 2016 was followed a year later by the totality of their collapse against Pakistan in the 2017 Champions Trophy. Both matches, however, came earlier than expected in England's journey into the light. Morgan himself had always envisaged a four-year plan when it came to scraping his team off the turf after that dreadful defeat in Adelaide.

As for South Africa … who could forget the shattered minds and bodies that littered the Auckland outfield after that semi-final defeat four years ago? They perhaps felt, in that moment, that their latest and best chance at glory had been snatched by Grant Elliott's scythe through the line. And yet, the core of that squad are back for another go four years on - lessened by the loss of AB de Villiers in the interim, but emboldened perhaps by their relative anonymity and bolstered by a raft of young guns who, as Faf du Plessis pointed out in the pre-match press conference, have experience of winning a World Cup at under-19 level.

And so here we are, at the start of a potential 11 matches on the road to overdue glory. So near, so far. So often. So what's it to be this time?

Form guide

England WWWWL (last five completed matches, most recent first)

South Africa WWWWW

In the spotlight

England are "obsessed" with reaching the 500-mark, says Virat Kohli. And if that statement was merely an exercise in mind games, it nevertheless cut straight to the quick of England's World Cup credentials. They go into the competition as favourites on account of their awesome batting power, and no-one epitomises that better right now than the man who is likely to face their first ball of the tournament. Jason Roy's partnership with Jonny Bairstow is already among the most statistically awesome in ODI history, but on his Surrey home ground, and with a run of two fifties and a hundred in his last three ODI innings, it is Roy who seems best placed to produce the game-shaping onslaught - not least after his dress-rehearsal 89 not out from 46 balls against Afghanistan on this very ground. What is more, he has a point to prove in global events, after his drastic collapse in form during the 2017 Champions Trophy. If it really is to be England's time this time, then Roy is one of the men who must surely shine.

There was a palpable sense of panic in South Africa's ranks when Kagiso Rabada was flown home early from the IPL after sustaining a back niggle. Thoroughbred fast bowlers of his calibre are few and far between, and seeing as their all-time great, Dale Steyn, is going into the tournament with a shoulder injury that is set to rule him out of at least the first two games, the loss of the heir apparent would have been grievous. And yet, CSA's caution appears to have got Rabada to the starting line with no lasting damage. He eased back into action with seven well-directed overs in the warm-up against Sri Lanka - scalping Dimuth Karunaratne with a 140kph bouncer - and a bowler of his pace, skill and reputation is precisely the sort of weapon to rattle England's formidable ball-strikers. Who could forget his most recent appearance in an ODI in England, at Lord's in 2017?

Team news

England's XI has been chosen a full 24 hours in advance, and seeing as Eoin Morgan has declared a "full bill of health", there would seem to be just one strategic call to be made - do they trust Mark Wood, post-ankle scare, to hurtle in at the 90mph pace that he was able to display in his solitary outing against Pakistan earlier this month, despite having bowled just 13.1 competitive overs this season. Or do they revert to the tried-and-tested Liam Plunkett, England's most prolific fast-bowling wicket-taker since the 2015 World Cup, and a man whose very modus operandi is that he will let no-one down?

England: 1 Jason Roy, 2 Jonny Bairstow, 3 Joe Root, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Jos Buttler (wk), 6 Ben Stokes, 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Liam Plunkett/Mark Wood.

Steyn, as mentioned, is hors de combat, although it's a scenario that has not caught his captain, Faf du Plessis, unawares - South Africa's spearhead came into the World Cup about "60 percent ready", he explained on the eve of the match. Lungi Ngidi and Rabada will provide ample pace interjections in his absence, while South Africa have a brace of seasoned allrounders to fill the Steyn void. Of the two, Chris Morris seems more likely to get first dibs than Dwayne Pretorius.

South Africa: (possible) 1 Hashim Amla, 2 Quinton de Kock (wk), 3 Faf du Plessis (capt), 4 Rassie van der Dussen, 5 David Miller, 6 JP Duminy, 7 Andile Phehlukwayo, 8 Chris Morris, 9 Kagiso Rabada, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Imran Tahir.

Pitch and conditions

It looks a green and lively surface at this stage of the build-up, and assuming it retains that tinge of grass come the toss, it'll be a no-brainer, bowl-first wicket. England's preference is invariably to chase, but stand by for 40 minutes of hard graft against the new balls for whichever side is asked to take first strike. Thereafter, of course, you can expect normal service to apply. A true-paced batting wicket, brimful of runs. Rain was falling on match eve but the forecast for Thursday is warm, cloudy and dry.

Stats and trivia

• Neither team has lost a match in their most recent five-match ODI series. South Africa crushed Sri Lanka 5-0 on home soil in their final outing in March, while England beat Pakistan 4-0 (with one game, at The Oval, washed out).

• England beat South Africa 2-1 in their most recent ODI encounter, in 2017. However, their one defeat was instructive. Facing up to Rabada on a Lord's greentop, they suffered one of their habitual batting malfunctions, tumbling to 20 for 6 and a seven-wicket defeat.

• Warm-up matches may not count for much in the final analysis, but England certainly enjoyed their preview of the Oval conditions on Monday, battering Afghanistan by nine wickets with 195 balls left unused.

• England fared okay on the last occasion that they hosted a World Cup opener - beating Sri Lanka by eight wickets at Lord's in 1999 - in one of their few highlights of a dismal campaign.

• South Africa, however, had less to write home about when they hosted West Indies in the 2003 curtain-raiser. A Brian Lara special condemned them to a three-run defeat, one that would prove rather costly a few weeks down the line …

Quotes

"The level of expectation and favourite tags is there for a reason. Over the last two years, our form at home, in particular, has been outstanding. That's the reason the expectation is there."
Eoin Morgan embraces England's front-runners status.

"England are the favourites, so if it means on the day there is less pressure on us then we can play freely. We are going in as underdogs and if that releases some players in the team, then that is great."." Faf du Plessis embraces England's front-runners status too.

Joe Denly has put his World Cup disappointment behind him to focus returning to England's ranks for the Ashes.

Denly, who was cut from England's squad for the tournament starting on Thursday in favour of left-arm spinner Liam Dawson, has returned to the County Championship as acting Kent captain in place of the injured Sam Billings. And it is there that he is determined to make his case for a return to the England Test team to face Australia in August and September.

"Before I got the call, I knew that was an avenue they could take and I was fully prepared for it," Denly told BBC Radio Kent of his omission. "Liam Dawson is a fantastic cricketer and deserves his selection.

"There's no point in me moping around. I've got to get on with it now and I'm looking forward to putting in some performances for Kent and getting some County Championship runs under my belt.

"There's a lot of cricket between now and the Ashes, so my focus now is performing well for Kent and if that happens, hopefully the Ashes selection will take care of itself."

Denly made his only two Test appearances during England's winter tour of the Caribbean, making scores of 6, 17, 20 and 69. He was named in a preliminary 17-man squad for the World Cup as a possible back-up spin bowler but returned unremarkable figures - albeit from limited opportunities - during matches against Ireland and Pakistan before England settled on their final 15 for the global tournament.

Despite his disappointment, Denly remained positive about the hosts living up to their billing as favourites to lift the trophy.

"That England white-ball team is a special side and the country should be excited about their chances at the World Cup," he said.

Denly, who also played in the BBL and made one IPL appearance this year, said he had no regrets over his "long-haul" winter or his continued desire to perform in the world's leading T20 competitions.

"I would have liked to play more cricket for sure, but it has been great to be involved in the IPL, BBL and with England," he said.

Denly had scored 20 and taken one wicket during Essex's second innings when rain halted play on day three of their Championship match at Chelmsford on Wednesday.

Get in the World Cup mood with updates from the tournament opening party on the Mall. Refresh the page if the live blog doesn't appear.

The security guard allegedly knocked down by Ezekiel Elliott at a Las Vegas music festival earlier this month says he is still seeking a genuine apology from the Dallas Cowboys running back.

Kyle Johnson, 19, told KCBS-TV in Los Angeles that he wasn't injured in the May 19 incident that led to Elliott being detained but was disappointed by his actions. While trying to access a secure area at the festival, Elliott allegedly used his body to shove Johnson backward and he fell over a security fence.

"I wasn't hurt or anything, but just to have someone that you looked up to shove you on the ground over a metal fence?" Johnson told the station. "It's not the biggest thing in the world, but really, [to say] nothing happened? I mean, come on."

Video of the incident was released by TMZ.

Johnson, who plays football at a California community college, told KCBS that he would like another apology, saying he wasn't satisfied by the one he got at the time.

"I did get an apology from him. It wasn't a sincere apology," Johnson said. "He didn't maintain eye contact. It didn't seem sincere at all."

Johnson declined to press charges against Elliott at the time. He told KCBS he hadn't thought about whether that was the right decision or if he would reconsider.

At the time of Elliott's detainment, Las Vegas police office Laura Meltzer described the possible charge as misdemeanor battery.

On Thursday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he didn't believe the NFL would take action against Elliott, who was suspended six games in 2017 for violating the league's personal conduct policy.

The number hovers over these NBA Finals: 31-1 -- the Golden State Warriors' record in their past 32 games with Stephen Curry and without Kevin Durant.

That is the version of Golden State that begins this final chase for a three-peat, and the team's fourth title in five seasons. If Durant returns, this becomes two different series: with him, and without him.

The Warriors can win it without him. That is self-evident. But that 31-1 number does not make them a sure thing against a confident Toronto Raptors team carrying home-court advantage. Golden State compiled that record against the broader NBA. Its opponents in all such games had a collective scoring margin of just plus-0.3 points per game, according to research by ESPN's Kevin Pelton.

The first stretch, coinciding with Durant's knee injury in 2017, came against a soft schedule. The Warriors eked out five-plus quarters against a Houston Rockets team that seemed overwhelmed by its opportunity. The Portland Trail Blazers were thin and gassed.

The deep end of the playoffs is where those records go to die. The Rockets of last season were unbeatable with all three of Chris Paul, James Harden and Clint Capela -- until the Warriors beat them. The Milwaukee Bucks hadn't lost three consecutive games until these Raptors blitzed them in four straight.

Without Durant, the Warriors lose their No. 1 option defending Kawhi Leonard, who has become San Antonio's "pound the rock" ethos incarnate: He makes sure you feel him on every possession, with burrowing shoulder-checks and implausible extended arms and a brick-wall torso not even Giannis Antetokounmpo could move, until you finally crack under the unrelenting pressure.

Leonard is an almost perfect postseason player. He is shooting 55 percent on long 2-pointers in these playoffs. The ability to hit contested, unassisted midrange shots at that rate is the ultimate postseason weapon. It is the skill that makes Durant Golden State's fail-safe. It is insurance against slumps, and elite defenses that take away everything else.

It could allow for Toronto to control tempo the way LeBron's Cavaliers did in toppling the last Golden State team without Durant. The Raptors and Warriors rank as two of the league's best fast-breaking teams. Which team finds more of those chaos points -- without leaking on the offensive glass, where the Warriors have been hungrier in the playoffs -- will play a role determining the championship.

Turnovers lead to those kinds of chaos points, and Golden State's turnover rate could be a bellwether. Toronto has long arms everywhere; the Warriors have a long history of arrogant, casual gaffes.

The Raptors won the possession game against the Bucks, and they have to again here -- against a Warriors team that has ramped up its offensive rebounding. Toronto forces a good number of turnovers, and Golden State is prone to making them.

Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam are smart seizing run-out chances. They should continue to, even against the greatest fast-breaking team since the Showtime Lakers -- just as the 2016 Cavs did in defiance of conventional wisdom. But when those chances don't present themselves, Leonard can grind the game to a pace that saps Golden State's verve.

When Toronto has the ball

In the one game Leonard played against Golden State this season, Klay Thompson took the bulk of the Leonard assignment when Durant rested. The bet here is the job falls first to Andre Iguodala, with Thompson taking Lowry, and Curry hiding on Danny Green. That probably leaves Draymond Green on Siakam, and whomever starts at center on Marc Gasol.

It might be time for Steve Kerr to get on with it and start Kevon Looney. The Warriors are wary of overtaxing Looney. They like bringing high-IQ players off the bench to settle reserve units. Looney and Iguodala have nice chemistry.

But Iguodala is starting for now, and Looney is way better than Jordan Bell, Andrew Bogut or Damian Jones. Start him -- even if DeMarcus Cousins returns. A recovering Cousins fits better with Golden State's second units. The Warriors should not risk disrupting the rhythm of the Curry/Thompson/Green trio by plopping in a slower big who needs the ball. Let Cousins mash opposing benches in lineups featuring only Thompson among Golden State's founding stars.

There is an argument for swapping Draymond Green onto Gasol, and Looney onto Siakam -- mimicking what Philadelphia and Milwaukee did. Gasol is the more frequent pick-and-roll partner for Lowry and Leonard; Draymond Green is more agile than Looney switching those plays, or corralling Lowry and Leonard at the arc. The Warriors tried switching their centers onto Leonard, and Leonard destroyed them.

But guarding Siakam allows Draymond Green to roam more freely. Siakam is a canny ball handler in his own right, and Green is better-equipped than Looney to defend that end of a pick-and-roll. The Warriors in this alignment would have Thompson, Iguodala and Draymond Green on Toronto's three best offensive players -- Lowry, Leonard, and Siakam -- and the ability to switch actions involving any two of them. (Green will probably get some chances as Leonard's primary guy.)

Thompson has been stout switching onto Siakam:

Siakam has improved since then. He went at Antetokounmpo with surprising gusto. The Thompson-Siakam battle will be one of those swing games-within-the-game.

Toronto will target Golden State's centers in the pick-and-roll. Golden State would probably live with Thompson and Iguodala switching onto Gasol on those plays. They could front him, and count on backside help.

The problem is on the other end of that switch -- Golden State's centers on Lowry or Leonard. Lowry cannot be passive against that matchup. He has to let the step-back 3-pointers fly, and roast those galoots off the bounce. He has to play with the KLOE swagger every second for Toronto to do this.

Golden State will occasionally trap Leonard with its centers, and that is where Gasol becomes so important. He can act as a release valve, and spray passes in 4-on-3 situations. But trapping Leonard is preferable to switching, and sometimes to dropping back -- a strategy that risks Leonard pulling up for 3s, or pitching to Gasol (and Serge Ibaka) for pick-and-pop triples. (Ibaka is 7-of-32 from deep in the playoffs, and 4-of-27 if you exclude Game 7 against Philly. He has migrated back into midrange. The Raptors will need some 3s from him to win.)

Leonard is stronger than both Iguodala and Thompson. Neither has the length to bother him with extendo-arms the way Durant does. Thompson is tough as hell and will win some battles, but Leonard can overpower him:

Toronto should use cross screens and other methods of getting Leonard deeper touches:

Getting Leonard the ball on the move -- slingshotting him from the corners, around multiple picks -- has been effective all season:

Leonard can hunt backdoor cuts out of those actions, and both Thompson and Iguodala have been aggressive denying the ball against him -- exposing the back door:

There has been tension all season between Nick Nurse's motion offense and Leonard's old-school one-on-one devastation. That tension is not inherently damaging. But Toronto knows how to incorporate Leonard into more elaborate, quick-hitting actions Nurse prefers:

The Raptors are better when they shift between styles. You can't beat Golden State with a steady diet of anything -- not even Leonard isolations and pick-and-rolls against set defenses. The Sixers sent very little help at those. The Bucks sent a lot. Leonard broke both. The Warriors are better than anyone in the middle ground, and at baiting opponents into thinking they see something they don't. Toronto's role players will need to hit open 3s, though they might not get as many naked looks this time around.

Any interaction between Leonard and a smaller teammate brings the possibility of a switch -- and a delicious mismatch. When Curry is stuck on Lowry, the Raptors should lean into Lowry-Leonard two-man stuff. They should run Curry through flare screen actions that surprised Milwaukee:

But after makes, the Warriors will stash Curry on Danny Green. To hunt Curry, the Raptors will have to redirect their offense through Green picks.

That hasn't looked natural. Leonard is not the sort of playmaker who gets rid of the ball early, and Green is not much of a threat beyond pick-and-pop 3s. He is in a vicious slump.

He is also one of the great 3-point shooters in NBA Finals history. Green will snap that slump. But to really punish Curry -- and to give themselves a chance to get him into foul trouble -- the Raptors might need to pair Lowry with Fred VanVleet more, so that Curry has to defend a dangerous ball handler. (Curry will also get some time on Norman Powell.)

When Golden State has the ball

Giving some Danny Green minutes to VanVleet sacrifices size and defense, and you need as much of those as possible to survive Golden State. Green is a popular nominee to defend Curry, with Lowry presumably sliding to Iguodala. Green has three inches on Curry, and five on Lowry. Curry feasts on most smaller guards.

But Green is at a severe quickness disadvantage chasing Curry through Golden State's maze of picks. The Raptors have preferred him on Thompson. Lowry guarding Iguodala also means one of Siakam and Leonard has to defend a Splash Brother, and overdoing any such matchup seems bad.

Leonard, of course, can guard anyone. The Spurs were selective using him as the primary defender on Curry, but Leonard did not look out at sea hounding Curry in open space:

Leonard-on-Curry looms as a crunch-time defensive weapon. Leonard is long enough to challenge Curry from behind, and get his giant magnet hands into passing lanes:

Curry has put Leonard on skates, but he gets everyone eventually:

Toronto won't ask Leonard to defend Curry full time, even with Durant out. (Leonard will get the Durant assignment, with Siakam as Plan B.) It is exhausting. The bet here is that Leonard starts on Draymond Green or Iguodala. I'd try him on Draymond Green -- with Siakam on Iguodala -- even though that assignment is exhausting in its own way.

To beat even the non-Durant Warriors, you have to be able to switch the Curry-Green pick-and-roll. That is just a fundamental truth now. It doesn't matter if injuries chip away at the shooting around those guys: If you blitz Curry over and over, Draymond Green is going to find a way to beat you with his playmaking. You need to vary your strategy, but switching has to be at the core of it.

Leonard can switch onto Curry. The Raptors won't worry about a smaller player jostling with Green on the other side of that switch; Lowry has defended Draymond Green often.

Another potential deployment of Leonard: as Klay-stopper against Golden State's second units. The Raptors have been miserable with both Lowry and Leonard resting, and aiming Leonard at Thompson in those minutes doubles as a way of keeping at least one of Toronto's All-Stars on the floor at all times.

But obsessing over optimal matchups against Golden State is folly, at least with Curry and Thompson both on the floor. On-ball action encompasses only a small portion of what the Warriors do. Toronto's optimal matchups will sustain for about three seconds. Once the Warriors start moving, the Raptors will start switching.

Green and Leonard have a lot of shared experience guarding the Curry-era Warriors. They know how to switch, talk (Leonard points and screams like a non-robot against the Warriors) and make reads on the fly.

There is no catchall answer. It seems smart to sag off Golden State's non-shooters -- until the moment they screen for Thompson and Curry.

Well, then, press those non-shooters, right? Nah. Do that, and everyone cuts for layups.

You have to do everything. You have to toggle from one strategy to the next in a flash, and then back again. You have to help, but not too much, and not at the wrong times. You have to be comfortable living in those in-between spaces -- in a netherworld that feels precarious to all but the very best.

Toronto has the very best -- smart, rangy regulars on the All-Defensive teams. They can track all the shifting variables, and improvise without bumping into one another. Leonard and Siakam are long and quick enough to effectively be in two places at once:

Golden State, of course, can engage in the same predatory simplicity as opponents who hunt Curry. If Durant returns, expect actions -- including the dreaded Curry-Durant two-man game -- designed to get Lowry and VanVleet onto Durant.

Until then, the Warriors can target Gasol and Ibaka. No team has played more centers off the floor. Golden State usually does that by dispensing with its centers, and sliding Green there. The Warriors barely went that route against the Trail Blazers, and have no access to the Death Lineup -- or the Coma Lineup, with Shaun Livingston in Iguodala's place -- with Durant injured.

They could try Curry/Thompson/Livingston/Iguodala/Green, though that group might not have enough shooting to justify the speed-for-size tradeoff. Alfonzo McKinnie could appear in such lineups; he should absorb a few minutes of the Leonard assignment on defense.

Curry can still test Gasol in the pick-and-roll. The occasional screen at half court is especially mean; it gives Curry a long runway and infinite options:

Imagine being Ibaka there? What a nightmare.

Gasol can't stay with Curry on switches. Drop back, and Curry rains fire. Gasol will have to pressure Curry, and force the pass to Looney -- turning Looney into a playmaker. You have to live with something.

But you don't always get to choose. A pick-and-roll presents a narrow range of decisions in a static environment. Pursuing Curry through a forest of off-ball screens is an entirely different thing. Plans are discarded. People panic.

Golden State can also hit Gasol with screen-the-screener actions -- when another Warrior slams Gasol on his way up to the Curry pick-and-roll, pinning Gasol behind the play.

Ibaka is nimbler than Gasol, but Toronto loses something on offense. Nurse has saved one card all season: Siakam at center. The Gasol deal rendered that card almost moot; it is hard to bench two of your six best players.

The absence of OG Anunoby really hurts here, too. He unlocks a lot of lineup possibilities. Nurse might explore Siakam at center anyway.

Prediction

The Raptors have a lot of answers. They have home court. Maybe in getting this far, they shed the mental yips that pockmarked their play at times before the Milwaukee series -- the bouts of hot-potato timidity from Lowry and Gasol.

But the pressure of the Finals is new, more intense. Golden State has lived it many times over. The Warriors are ready. Part of them is excited to start on the road. After all these years, they crave new challenges.

The Warriors' defense has struggled by its standards, and the biggest overarching question is whether Toronto can score enough to keep up; Golden State ranks ninth in points allowed per possession in the playoffs. But the Warriors faced offenses that finished second, third and ninth in the regular season. They locked in against Portland. Losing Durant forced them to dig deeper -- to tap back in to the roaring frenzy of their classic defensive performances.

They won't downshift now. A Durant return seems possible. It is hard to bet against a core that has been through this so many times, and beaten back so many challengers. The Raptors have the goods to take this, or to at least force Golden State to earn it with the rarest of wins: on the road, in Game 7. In fact, let's go there. My initial feel was Warriors in 6, but let's speak a classic into existence: Warriors in 7.

Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry is the betting favorite to be named NBA Finals MVP -- an honor that has eluded the two-time MVP and three-time champion.

Caesars Sportsbook opened Curry as a -150 favorite, but the odds have since lowered to -125, following wagers from respected bettors on Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, each at 9-1 odds. Toronto Raptors star Kawhi Leonard (+275) is the No. 2 favorite.

"The market is not something we take a lot of public action on, so you have to be very careful, especially when you first open markets, to not let yourselves get buried by particular bets," Alan Berg, a senior oddsmaker at Caesars, told ESPN's Doug Kezirian. "If we get the type of action we're looking for from someone we considered to be a great player, then we'd move aggressively."

On Monday, Curry said earning Finals MVP honors is "secondary" to winning the title.

"That's just nitpicking at the end of the day, if I really want to cause a hissy-fit about not winning the Finals MVP with all that we've experienced and all the highs that we've been to," Curry said. "... Everybody has a part in what we do, and whoever wins it this year, it's the same vibe. I could go out and average 50, but without the contributions and the effort and the focus of everybody that steps foot on the floor, we're not putting banners up. Everybody can feel pride in all the individual accolades as well as the team."

Jerry West of the Los Angeles Lakers captured the first Finals MVP award in 1969, and he remains the only player to receive the honor from a team that lost the Finals.

Kevin Durant was the Finals MVP in 2017 and 2018 but is ruled out for Game 1 with a strained right calf. His status for the rest of the series remains unknown. Caesars is offering 18-1 odds on Durant, given he may not even suit up for a single game.

Warriors forward Andre Iguodala won the NBA Finals MVP in 2015, becoming the only award winner to not start every game in the series. Iguodala was in the neighborhood of a 125-1 long shot in offshore betting markets. Finals MVP odds were not offered in Nevada until 2017.

Game 1 of the Finals is Thursday (9 p.m. ET, ABC).

As drama swirls around the Los Angeles Lakers, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he has "tremendous" confidence in team owner Jeanie Buss and believes the team will turn things around.

"I know Jeanie knows how to manage a team," Silver said Wednesday morning in a wide-ranging interview on ESPN's Get Up. "Sure, when things start to go wrong, a lot of fingers get pointed. But they'll figure it out."

Since the regular season ended, Magic Johnson resigned during an impromptu news conference and the team parted with head coach Luke Walton. A slew of candidates were interviewed -- Ty Lue and Monty Williams were both offered the job -- before the team settled on Frank Vogel as the next head coach.

The Buss family is one of the longest-tenured ownership groups in the NBA. That and the franchise's championship history are reasons Silver believes the team will get back to their winning ways.

Like Buss, Silver said he didn't have any prior notice that Johnson was stepping down. "I watched that press conference live like everyone else did and didn't know it was coming," Silver said. "But I think he spoke from the heart."

Silver also addressed a lunch conversation he had with LeBron James' agent, Rich Paul, which ESPN's Baxter Holmes reported on Tuesday.

"He was in the same restaurant," Silver said. "There were two people sitting there. He sat down for a second, and I think he said something along the lines that 'Luke Walton is not the right guy to coach LeBron.'

"My reaction was to shrug my shoulders and maybe say, 'Well, who do you think is the right guy to coach?' And he mentioned a name and that was that. I think as commissioner, I don't want to shut people off who have a point of view."

Silver said interactions like that are fairly common.

"I think he just wanted to say it out loud," Silver said. "I don't think he had any expectation that I would repeat that to anyone."

Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey has made his entire roster and future draft picks available in trade talks, a dramatic initiative with hopes of reshaping the team into a championship contender, league sources told ESPN.

The possibility of trading All-NBA guard James Harden is believed to be extremely limited, but the rest of the roster -- including even Chris Paul and Clint Capela -- could be more realistic trade targets, sources said.

Paul's remaining contract (three years, $124 million) and advancing age (34) make deal possibilities somewhat prohibitive.

The Harden-Paul dynamic wasn't without its challenges this year for the Rockets, league sources said.

The Rockets have been more aggressive in offering up Capela in recent days, sources said. Houston has lost in the conference finals and conference semifinals to Golden State in consecutive years.

Houston has made changes on its coaching staff, and extension talks with coach Mike D'Antoni appear to be stalled. He has one year left on his contract.

EVEN THOUGH HE knew better, because he'd been in this same situation dozens of times before, Steph Curry, the consummate marksman and champion, who just 40 days earlier had been named the first unanimous MVP in NBA history, couldn't help himself.

His reaction with 53 ticks left on the Game 7 clock in the 2016 NBA Finals, seconds after Kyrie Irving's surgical 3-point shot had fallen through the strings, was a primal, instinctive response to a lifetime spent swirling in a cauldron of competition and pressure: "I gotta go back at him."

This, Curry would recognize later, was the incorrect course of action. But in the moment, pride overrode practical sensibilities.

As he dribbled the ball up the floor, the pressure mounting with Irving in pursuit, Curry's hypothalamus, a small region of the brain located near the pituitary gland, sounded the alarm. When the body and mind are under duress, the hypothalamus instructs the adrenal glands to release cortisol and adrenaline, both stress hormones.

This is what caused Curry's heartbeat to accelerate and his breath to quicken, sending blood rushing to the areas that needed it most, a way to protect his body in emergencies.

That sensation was different from what Curry experiences before most big games, when, he says, he contends with butterflies that leave his stomach in turmoil.

"It's an uneasy feeling," Curry says. "And it happens fast. It's not a steady progression. I experience it when I'm in the locker room, preparing to get locked in for a big game.

"Because it matters so much. It's cliché, but if you aren't nervous, it doesn't matter enough to you."

Earlier in Curry's career when the game was tight and he was on the bench, former Warriors assistant coach Keith Smart noticed that Curry's leg would quiver. "It was almost like a nervous twitch," Curry reports.

Smart offered a suggestion to Curry: Purposely tense all the muscles in his body, hold it, feel the stress, then suddenly release.

"You start with every muscle you think you can control in a neutral position, and then when you tighten them, I think your body thinks, 'Well, this is as stressed as your body can be,'" Curry explains. "So when you let all that go, maybe that's how the endorphins kick in.

"I don't know if it was based on science or something [Smart] actually did as a player, but it worked."

By the time June 19, 2016, rolled around, Curry had strayed from that exercise. As he focused on matching Kyrie tit for tat, teammate Draymond Green slid over with 44.2 seconds left to set a stout pick on Irving, forcing 7-footer Kevin Love to switch onto Curry.

Curry's adrenaline surged. It was a mismatch he felt certain he could exploit.

"When I was younger and got into those types of situations," Curry says, "it made me rush, play fast. With experience, you figure out ways to slow the game down."

Curry pump-faked, created a sliver of separation, dribbled left, then crossed over to his right. The shot clock whittled down to four seconds and Curry, capitulating to the urgency, hoisted a 3 that bounced off the rim and out.

"I'm like, 'I just need a little space' -- and that's where I started to rush," Curry says now. "I look back and think I could have easily gone around [Love] and gotten a 2, and we could have gotten a stop, and then I could come back down and hit another shot, and we win another championship, instead of me going for the hero shot, which I felt like I could make.

"That was a shot where I was not under control. And it cost us a championship."

As Curry walked off the court, simultaneously devastated and furious with himself, the Cleveland Cavaliers fell into a heap of celebration. Curry surveyed the scene before he departed; he remembers exactly what he was thinking.

"Don't ever make the mistake of rushing like that again," he says.

CAN ELITE ATHLETES train to be impervious to pressure? Steph Curry thinks they can, and offers his dossier following that fateful 2016 June day as evidence. Since then, Golden State has won back-to-back championships and is positioned for a three-peat. In that time, Curry has drilled 61 clutch shots within the last five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime, according to ESPN Stats & Information. His clutch ability and mental resolve were highlighted in a seminal 33-point second-half performance to eliminate the Houston Rockets in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals after he had gone scoreless in the first half.

"I guess you can say the [2016] miss didn't haunt me," he says.

Elite athletes fail. What makes them elite is they learn and grow from it. Think Earvin "Magic" Johnson dribbling out the clock and missing key free throws in the 1984 Finals against the Celtics and being branded "Tragic Magic" -- then returning the next season to lead the Lakers to the title over Boston, and thwarting the Celtics again in 1987 with a junior, junior hook that has become an enduring symbol of Johnson's greatness.

Think LeBron James, who, as the Chosen One of the Heat, appeared passive and disconnected in the 2011 Finals against Dallas, gnawing on his fingernails as Miami blew a 2-1 series lead -- then embracing the role as the team's alpha and delivering two Heat titles, and one for Cleveland later.

"Truly great ones know there's pressure, so they don't consider consequences," says Heat president Pat Riley, who coached Magic and ran the front office during LeBron's Miami tenure. "If they did, they'd cave all the time."

Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to life's challenges. Elite basketball stars shared with ESPN how stress manifested itself in each of them during critical moments. They experienced varying physical characteristics of that stress: For Michael Jordan, it meant palms that became so sweaty, he needed to apply repeated doses of rosin powder so he could grip the ball. For Larry Bird, it was a persistent nausea that would not subside until he hit the pregame layup line.

"I enjoy pressure. I look forward to it." Kyrie Irving

How each of those stars mentally managed that stress, and in some cases thrived from it, has shaped their legacies. Ignore the consequences, as Riley suggests, and your career trajectory shoots upward. Succumb to those consequences, and you will never reach your potential. Just like with refining your shooting stroke, the more reps with pressure, the more your body will learn to cope.

Irving sank the biggest jumper in Cavs history with great regard to the magnitude of the shot. It was important for him, he explains, to recognize the gravity of the moment, because that's when he feels most invincible. Irving claims the best players transform pressure into a potent weapon by utilizing a deep reservoir of belief in their own abilities.

"Pressure to me is just a word describing fear," Irving says. "And when you go through the process of figuring life out, how important basketball is to you, and you release that fear and the circumstances and environment it exists in, you learn to embrace pressure.

"I enjoy pressure. I look forward to it."

Jerry West, for his part, systematically prepared his mind and body over a lifetime of training for clutch moments. West says he spent his childhood shooting baskets simulating the final seconds of a game.

"I did it a million times as a kid," West says. "And I never failed, because I was the timekeeper. If I missed, I'd always put a second back on the clock."

When West played in the NBA in the '60s, the shot clock didn't display fractions of a second. West didn't need it. He had created a permanent cadence in his brain. "I never had to look at the clock," he says. "I never felt pressure because it was ingrained in me how to make those shots."

There is no data available regarding clutch shooting during West's playing days, but he contends during the 1969-70 season, when Wilt Chamberlain was out with a serious knee injury, that he connected on 12 game winners for Los Angeles (the Lakers' archives also make mention of this feat).

"It's a different kind of pressure. Those guys, when it gets stripped down, don't believe in themselves. They aren't sure they can hit the big shot, so they can't. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy." Michael Jordan, on playoff stress vs. the regular season.

Not everyone is able to corral stress. Former Orlando guard Nick Anderson infamously missed four free throws in the final 10 seconds of a 1995 Finals game that, he later conceded, destroyed his confidence -- and his career. Though DeMar DeRozan's story has yet to be fully written, one of the reasons the Raptors moved on from him, team sources have privately confirmed, was his tendency to falter in the playoffs, when his shooting and scoring numbers dipped.

"Some guys in the league right now, their regular seasons are different than the playoffs," Jordan explains. "Why is that? Because it's a different kind of pressure. Those guys, when it gets stripped down, don't believe in themselves. They aren't sure they can hit the big shot, so they can't. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy."

In the book Peak Performance, authors Steve Magness and Brad Stulberg argue that stress can serve as a stimulus for growth and adaptation. They liken the process of harnessing stress to lifting weights to add muscle. There is exertion, fatigue, recovery, then added strength.

"If you have doubt or concern about a shot, or feel the 'pressure' of that shot, it's because you haven't practiced it enough," Jordan says. "The only way to relieve that pressure is to build your fundamentals, practice them over and over, so when game breaks down, you can handle anything that transpires.

"I could beat you one-on-one, from the free throw line, or with a defensive stop. And if you put three guys on me, I'd beat you with a pass to my teammate for an easy open shot.

"People didn't believe me when I told them I practiced harder than I played, but it was true. That's where my comfort zone was created. By the time the game came, all I had to do was react to what my body was already accustomed to doing."

Jordan has converted some of the most iconic shots in basketball history, including 25 game winners. Twenty-four of those came in the final 10 seconds of the game. But, like many of the champions interviewed for this story, there's one he missed that remains etched in his memory.

It was in 1991, in his first trip to the Finals, against a Lakers team featuring Magic, James Worthy and Vlade Divac. With nine seconds left in Game 1, Jordan launched a wing jumper over the spindly arms of his former North Carolina teammate Sam Perkins. It felt perfect.

Until it rolled around and out.

"Now, if you thought about it, that was a pretty big miss," Jordan says today. "It was my first-ever game in the Finals. I could have folded.

"But I had no trouble bouncing back because I knew it was a good shot. I didn't rush it or short-arm it or anything. I just missed it."

Jordan went on to average 32.9 points and shoot 55.8 percent from the floor in the series. The Lakers didn't win another game.

"I believed every time out I was the best. And the more shots I hit, the more it reinforced that," Jordan says. "So, when you miss -- because no matter how great you are, you will miss -- you don't waver, because you've built yourself a nice little cushion of confidence.

"Now, we've seen plenty of guys go the other way. They miss one shot and they can't seem to ever make one. That's the kind of negative reinforcement that ruins guys."

WHEN LEBRON JAMES signed with the Miami Heat in the summer of 2010, he declared that he, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh would win not one championship, not two, not three, not four, not five.

Then, the 2011 Finals happened. The heavily favored Heat built a 2-1 series lead over the Dallas Mavericks, but imploded over the final three games.

"We would have won that series had we not blown Game 2," Riley says. "We were ahead by 15 with six minutes to go and our guys were celebrating like we'd won the championship, LeBron included."

In that series, LeBron's struggles in the final quarter were telling. He averaged just three points a game in the fourth quarter, missed eight of the nine 3s he took and shot 33.3 percent overall. Most distressing was his unwillingness to take the shot, averaging just 3.5 attempts in that final frame. It left him open to criticism that he was shying away from the moment.

"LeBron is a great player," Riley says, "but before he came to us, he was banging his head against the wall like all great players that can't win. His first year [in Miami] was somewhat convoluted, from the standpoint of chemistry. As much as those guys talked around it, you had three significant players who never really got on the same page. They never let it fester, but they never spoke about it way they should have."

The fallout from the Heat's collapse was vicious. James heard it all: choker, head case, front-runner.

"In our exit meeting, LeBron was very dark," Riley recalls. "He didn't want talk at all about anything.

"He was paralyzed in his own depression. But I wasn't worried. I could have said, 'Hey, big guy, call Magic Johnson. Tell him how it feels to hear people say you choked, that you didn't do the job.'"

In his HBO series "The Shop," James admitted the 2011 Finals failure felt "like the world caved in."

"I left that Finals like, 'Yo, Bron, what the f--- was you on, man? Like, you was overthinking everything. You didn't show up. You didn't do what you were supposed to do.' You know? And now you can't even sleep at night because you didn't give it all that you had."

While outsiders declared James needed an appointment with a psychiatrist, Riley let his superstar stew. He felt confident that James' advisers, Rich Paul and Maverick Carter among them, would help their friend navigate this critical crossroad in his career.

"They were tremendous," Riley says. "They knew how to love him and lift him up."

To quiet his mind, James eschewed social media, nightclubs, the spotlight. He began reading more, devouring the entire Hunger Games series on road trips. He sat down for a candid conversation with his friend Wade and informed him he was done deferring.

He found solace in the gym, and like so many before him -- Magic in the mid-'80s, Jordan years later -- began building scar tissue to protect himself from the mental scars of 2011.

How that transpires is fascinating. There is a fatty substance formed in the central nervous system called myelin that enables nerve cells to transmit information faster and allow for more complex brain functions.

Consider the first time a right-handed player tries to dribble with the left hand. It's awkward, clumsy. Initially, the nerves that fire off signals to complete that task are controlled in the front cortex of the brain. Over time, with countless repetitions, those nerve firings become more insulated. The myelin sheath builds up. Eventually, less effort is required to use that left hand, and the brain processes it as second nature.

The same is possible with pressure, according to neurologists. With repetition, stress can be transformed into fortitude. James accomplished this in the wake of his biggest disappointment.

"I was wearing a hat that I wasn't accustomed to," James said on "The Shop." "And I bought into it because, at that point of time in my life I was still caring about what other people thought. That moment shaped me for who I am today.

"After that 2011 Finals, man, I was just like, that's never happening again. I may lose again. I may not win everything. But I will never fail at anything."

When the Heat won in 2013, the most celebrated shot was Ray Allen's killer 3 from the corner. In 2016, when the Cavs finally became champions, it was Irving's thrilling jumper that resonated. But it's erroneous to suggest LeBron hasn't come through with big shots of his own.

Since the Finals loss to the Mavericks, James has hit five buzzer-beaters, leaving him with seven overall in his career. Only Joe Johnson (eight) has hit more, per ESPN Stats & Information, which notes this data only includes performances since 2002.

Moreover, James leads all players in game-tying/go-ahead field goals (10) in the final 24 seconds of the fourth quarter/overtime since analysts began tracking the data in 1996. His former teammate Allen (seven) and Kobe Bryant (seven) are the only others who are close.

FOR THE 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Justin Rao and Matt Goldman wrote a paper examining the impact of pressure on NBA performance. They used data from 1.3 million possessions to study two aspects of the game: offensive rebounding, an effort-based skill, and free throw shooting, which relies on mental tenacity and concentration.

Rao and Goldman discovered that players shooting free throws in home games did worse in clutch situations than they did on the road due to what the authors called "detrimental self-focus." Their study concluded that when players attempt free throws in a hostile environment, they're more apt to rely on their instincts and muscle memory to complete the task. But when asked to take those same clutch free throws in the cozy confines of their own arenas, where hometown fans, friends and family are counting on them to succeed, players tend to overthink the shot, which, the authors contend, "disrupts the automatic ability to perform."

"'What happens if I miss? What happens if I make it? Will everyone love me?' You weigh the pros and cons. Nothing felt right. All I could think of was if I missed. I knew those feelings, and I knew I would drown in them." Kevin Durant, on the stress of free throws as a sophomore in high school.

Kevin Durant can relate. He was a sophomore at National Christian Academy in D.C. and a blossoming star after being relegated to mop-up duty the previous season.

"I wanted to see my name in the paper," Durant says. "But when the time finally came, I wanted it so badly, I robbed myself of the moment."

Durant's team was down by two to Montrose Christian (Durant would transfer there as a senior) in the final seconds of the game when Durant was fouled.

As he stepped up to the line, he was suddenly lightheaded. His adrenaline was on overdrive, and no one had taught him yet that a few deep breaths would be helpful.

"My mind was racing," Durant says. "'What happens if I miss? What happens if I make it? Will everyone love me?' You weigh the pros and cons. Nothing felt right. All I could think of was if I missed. I knew those feelings, and I knew I would drown in them."

Durant, who went on to become an 88 percent career NBA free throw shooter, knew the second he released the free throw, there was no chance of it going in. He was too focused on the wrong things.

"I was so upset with myself," Durant says. "You dream about those moments, but when you dream about them, you always make the shot. And it's never a free throw.

"You have to work on making that small little tweak in your brain where your thoughts are empty and free. But you only learn that going through the tough times and the losses and the misses."

Golden State coach Steve Kerr believes both Durant and Curry are presently unmoved by pressure, something he could not say about himself as a complementary NBA player.

"I was an overthinker," Kerr says. "And if your thoughts get in the way, you're screwed."

Kerr, who played alongside Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Tim Duncan, says that after short-arming big shots with the Bulls, and having to absorb Jordan's ire, he took coach Phil Jackson's advice and turned to meditation to allow his natural shooting motion to dominate his mind, instead of all the apprehensive "what ifs."

"I finally concluded, F--- It. If I get this ball, it's going up,'" Kerr says. "I went to an 'I don't care' approach instead of dwelling on all the repercussions."

Kerr went so far as to write "FI" on his shoes. It was there in ink the night he hit the winner for the Bulls in Game 6 of the 1997 Finals, and later chronicled by Sports Illustrated writer Chris Ballard. Kerr says college coaches from across the country approached him to tell him their kids had adopted his methods. Kerr chuckled when he saw a newspaper photo of Butler star Shelvin Mack with "FI" scrawled on his sneakers.

Kerr envies players like Jordan and Bird, who claimed they never suffered from doubt. Bird tells the story of his sophomore year in high school, when he broke his ankle and was languishing on the bench upon his return. Suddenly, his coach bellowed, "Bird!"

"I wasn't ready to play," Bird recalls. "But I go in and I come off a screen and I hit a shot. I'm thinking to myself, 'I haven't played in five months and I can score already.'"

By the time Bird went to the line for a 1-and-1 with 13 seconds left in the game and the score tied, his confidence was soaring.

"I walked up and hit both shots," he says. "Never fazed me a bit. I always felt bad for the guys who stepped up there and lost their nerve."

ELITE BASKETBALL PLAYERS aren't immune to stress -- they've just mastered how to channel it. Today's players benefit from state-of-the-art assistance from their teams, including superior training facilities, extensive medical staffs, nutritionists, sports scientists, mental health counselors, sports psychologists, sleep experts, yoga instructors and meditation gurus.

Yet the most valuable tool remains the inherent confidence that players know they have the skills to excel.

"Great players know it's OK to fail," Riley says. "They don't succumb to the pressure, but sometimes they succumb to the narrative, especially today when it changes game to game, even quarter to quarter.

"Look at the Boston Celtics. They beat Milwaukee in Game 1 of their series and they were the greatest. Then they lost four straight and now they suck.

"It's what I call 'peripheral opponents.' If you allow yourself to succumb to that tremendous stress and anxiety, it's going to get in your head."

Durant admits it has happened to him, even after winning back-to-back Finals MVPs in 2017 and 2018. It is, he says, a battle to block out the noise and maintain proper focus.

"It's dreading that embarrassment in front of all these people," he explains. "We have such huge egos in the NBA because everyone has catered to us our whole life. When you fail in front of all these people, you get stuck on those who say, 'I told you so,' instead of the people who love and support you.

"You can either drown in it or rise above it."

The NBA's brightest new star, Giannis Antetokounmpo, experienced his own healthy dose of stressful playoff basketball once his team fell behind 3-2 in the Eastern Conference finals to the Toronto Raptors, and the onus to save the Bucks' season landed squarely on his broad young shoulders.

"It was never a topic for me when I came into the league because nobody expected much from me," Antetokounmpo says. "Pressure is earned."

Antetokounmpo has already developed his own calming techniques. When he starts to feel jittery, he recalls his father's soothing words, that there's no need to be nervous about a game he has been playing his entire life. If he needs extra comfort, Giannis says, he rubs his wrists.

Curry has found it helpful, when he's sitting on the bench, to visualize what he hopes to accomplish when he returns to the floor. He has also found that deep breaths slow him -- and the game -- down considerably.

"What happened in 2016 was a hard lesson to learn," Curry says. "Kyrie had confidence before that shot, but that will live with him forever. Now, whenever he gets in a stressful situation, he can draw back on that."

Durant draws back to the 2017 Finals, when he did his own share of deep breathing and meditation on the way to finding peace -- and excellence. He learned to block out the stress by turning off his phone, placing the Do Not Disturb sign on his door, disengaging from most people outside the team and focusing on a singular goal: winning in spite of himself.

"The last thing I want when I play," Durant says, "is to be in my own way."