Golden State Warriors Force Game 7, Seek to Become the 10th NBA Team to Comeback From a 3-1 Deficit

May 29, 2016 08:59 AM EDT

(Photo : gettyimages.com) Thompson will lead the Warriors against the Thunder in Game 7 on Monday.

The defending NBA champions Golden State Warriors warded off elimination for the second time after getting the better of the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 6 of their best-of-seven Western Conference Finals series. As a result, both teams will play in a winner-take-all Game 7 at the Oracle Arena when the series shifts back to the Bay Area on Monday.

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The series is now tied with both teams winning three games apiece. The Thunder earned a commanding 3-1 advantage after claiming Games 1, 3 and 4, but the 73-game winning Warriors managed to keep their hopes alive to defend their title in the league's championship round with back-to-back victories in Games 5 and 6.

"I am just so proud of everybody, man," Thompson, who scored a playoff career-high 41 points including a league playoff record of 11 three-pointers in Game 6, said. "We were down almost the whole game and we never gave up."

It will be the first Game 7 for both the top-seeded Warriors and the third-seeded Thunder this postseason. The winner of Monday's game will be booking an NBA Finals showdown with the Eastern Conference champions Cleveland Cavaliers, who defeated the Toronto Raptors in six games.

With the 108-101 Game 6 win at the Chesapeake Energy Arena, the Warriors have been given the opportunity to become the 10^th NBA club to overcome a 3-1 deficit. Of the 232 previous teams to go down by 3-1 since the league shifted to the seven-game format, only nine have successfully come back to emerge victorious. Fifty of the 53 teams that went down 3-1 in conference finals have lost.

"To be in this situation - people were doubting us," Warriors forward Draymond Green said. "It will be the hardest game of our lives. It will be way harder than this game. Going back home, everybody will think, 'Oh, it's done.' It will be way harder. But if we come out and do what we did and stick to the game plan, we'll be fine."

TagsNBA 2016, Golden State Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder, Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, nba western conference finals