Oral history of Steph Curry's Double Bang Game: Kerr, Breen recall iconic moment

Oral history of Steph Curry's Double Bang Game: Kerr, Breen recall iconic moment originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Simplicity and audacity joined forces 10 years ago when one majestic shot and one word said twice stamped the greatest call from the greatest regular season game in NBA history. 

The simplicity of broadcaster Mike Breen to enthusiastically yell out “Bang!” And, unknowingly doing so twice. The audacity of Steph Curry to shoot, not heave, a 38-footer to beat the buzzer in a 121-118 Warriors overtime road win against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Feb. 27, 2016. The stakes of a historic season for a player and a team made this game everything that it was. 

Curry was closing in on his second straight NBA MVP season, and the first unanimous win in league history. He had scored 51 points the previous game and 42 the one before that. Neither could live up to the 46 points he scored and NBA-record tying 12 threes he made that night in OKC. 

The Warriors were 52-5 and weren’t backing down in their pursuit of eclipsing the 72-10 Chicago Bulls from 20 years prior. 

NBC Sports Bay Area went in-depth with Warriors coach Steve Kerr and Breen, the man behind the call, for the oral history of the Double Bang Game. Interviews have been edited and condensed.

Steve Kerr (Warriors head coach): “It’s one of the great regular-season games I’ve ever been part of. They were a hell of a team. We were obviously having a historic season, and they dominated the first half. It was one of the great wins of that season, for sure.”

Mike Breen (Hall of Fame broadcaster): “I’ve been doing this a long time. That was one of the most anticipated regular-season games ever. And that’s the thing, is that we all went into the game and couldn’t wait for the game to happen. There was such hype about the game, and then for it to turn out that way, nobody expected that because it was such a historic season for Golden State and they were the greatest show on Earth. It was some of the most beautiful basketball, team basketball, that I had ever seen, and a lot of people had ever seen. It was just a magical season where everything seemed to have this excitement and drama and just pure joy of watching. You couldn’t wait for the next game. OK, what are they going to do? Every arena they went into as the streak built and the historic season built, every arena they went into on the road, even when teams came to visit them, it was the No. 1 game on that team’s schedule. 

“So there was the pressure of that. There was the pressure of possibly setting the record for greatest regular season of all time, and then now they’re facing the one team that people thought had a chance to beat them. If you think about it, Oklahoma City’s record in that game was 41-17. They were 41-17 and they were 12 games behind. Amazing, because they were a great team. Oklahoma City was a great team, but Golden State was just playing at a level that very few teams clearly have ever played at, and they were led by this special player that had captured the imagination and the hearts of not only Dub Nation, but basketball fans around the world.”

The Lead Up

Just three weeks earlier, the Warriors and Thunder played each other for the first time as the prelude to an all-time great. The Warriors beat the Thunder 116-108 at Oracle Arena in a game where Curry had a 26-point, 10-assist double-double, and Kevin Durant (40 points and 12 rebounds) and Russell Westbrook (27 points and 12 assists) had double-doubles for the Thunder. They also were set to play each other again four days later, back in Oakland after this thriller in OKC, with all three of their regular-season games being played in less than a four-week span. 

While the Warriors were dominating the rest of the league, the Thunder had the third-best record in the NBA and wanted to do everything in their power to prove the Warriors didn’t scare them. Nothing about this felt like another regular-season game.

Kerr: “Yeah, definitely felt like a playoff preview. We knew how good they were and how athletic they were, so definitely had that type of feel for a regular-season game.”

Breen: “We all use the cliche, ‘Oh, this game feels like a playoff atmosphere.’ Well, this game was like a Finals atmosphere. It just had so many great individual players and these two teams playing at such an incredible level, and that building … that building was, and still is, one of the great venues in all sports, in any sport. That team means so much, not just to the fan base, but to the community. It’s such an important part of Oklahoma City, and the people there and they took this game as this is our chance. We’re going to show them that this is not going to be a runaway, that we’re not just going to hand the championship to these Warriors. We’re going to show them how great we are. 

“It had all the hype. And as a broadcaster in any game like that, you have to tell yourself, ‘OK, this has a chance to be something special. Let’s not get carried away early and keep your composure.’ All of us who call the games, clearly the No. 1 objective is to call a good professional game, but on certain games, sometimes the fan takes over. I’ve loved basketball since I was a kid. When you get to watch basketball played at this level with this kind of tenacity, sometimes the fan comes out of you.”

The Game 

The Thunder raced out to an 8-0 lead and led by as many as 14 points in the first quarter. The Warriors trailed by 10 points after the first quarter, 11 points at halftime and five points after the third quarter. Their first lead wasn’t until Curry made a 3-pointer in the third quarter that put the Warriors ahead 78-77 at the 1:22 mark. 

Was there a point where it felt like the Thunder was the better team and simply had the goods to beat them on this night?

Kerr: “Well, because it’s a regular-season game, those thoughts aren’t even going on in your head. It’s just, ‘Hey, let’s just try to win, and we know they’re really good, and let’s see what we can do.’ We always felt like we were in any game that we played because of our firepower and our defense. We knew we were right there and we were just a spurt away from taking the lead, which is exactly what happened.”

Breen: “You thought they certainly had a chance. But we’ve seen so many amazing comebacks, especially by a team of the caliber of the Warriors. So it was not a given. There just were so many other things, like at halftime with Draymond.

Halftime Incident 

The Warriors trailed 57-46 at halftime, and then tensions ran hot. Draymond Green and Kerr, in his second season as head coach, get into a heated, expletive-laden argument. Green, three months ago, on his podcast, took listeners behind the scenes to what happened. He says he only attempted two shots (he took three) and Kerr called out both of them, which he took exception to.

Green says that’s when the two started yelling at each other. He also added that he had thrown his shoes and that Kerr had told him he was done playing for the night.

But Kerr doesn’t remember anything about shoes, and his memories of what happened are a bit different. 

Kerr: “I remember showing an offensive clip he was involved in. I didn’t remember him shooting it. I remember him not passing it. It was a moment of frustration for him and for me, and yeah, got heated. Yeah, it got heated. Back then, especially, that was something that happened two or three times a year with us and we were both young. A lot of piss and vinegar, as they say.”

Breen: “Here’s this team that has this magical run and they’re playing in the most anticipated regular season game of what has been a historic season. And that’s the game where Draymond Green and Steve Kerr go at it. It was, it was shocking. Like, how could this happen? Really, can this happen? But I think in many ways, that showed the magnitude of the game. The game meant so much to both teams. They realized that the basketball community, everybody was tuned in to watch to see what was going to happen. Even these great Warriors probably felt a little pressure on this particular one, and that’s probably what was part of what happened at halftime.  

“We were waiting to see if, ‘OK, is this going to have any impact?’ And we quickly realized that it was going to have zero impact. 

ABC’s Lisa Salters served as the game’s sideline reporter. Waiting to interview Kerr outside the visiting locker room, she heard Green yelling profanities, daring and threatening teammates to calm him down, and later in the game reported on her information.

Breen: “I remember coming back out to the court and hearing it, but Lisa Salters was there the whole time. Lisa Salters did an amazing job in getting whatever information she could get, most of it by just being there and hearing it. She wasn’t spying or anything. She was just waiting out to talk to the coach. She was able to gather as much info as she could, and then she did a great job of reporting it. And we’re just looking at each other like, wow, this is unbelievable that this happened.”

Kerr: “I wish it didn’t happen. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. Yeah, it happened. You adapt to things as you go. We have a great relationship of 12 years of going through everything two people can possibly go through, and I love him. It’s like getting into a fight with a family member. It happens, but it doesn’t take away the love.”

Green in the second half and overtime combined to have eight rebounds, eight assists, four steals and four blocked shots.

Steph’s Injury Scare

Curry scored 15 points in the first half and made all four of the Warriors’ 3-pointers. The Warriors opened the third quarter on a 6-0 run and Curry then jumped a Durant pass to Westbrook. Driving to the basket, Curry stumbled and fell into the stanchion. As he was falling, Westbrook leapt and Curry rolled his left ankle, yelling at his teammates to foul since he couldn’t get up and began limping once he was on his feet.

Breen: “The thing that made us wonder was when he turned his ankle. People forget, there was one time earlier in his career where the Warriors, and I don’t think hesitant is the right word, but they had to have a discussion: ‘Are we going to give this young player a big extension?’ And he’s had all sorts of ankle injuries, because he had quite a few of them early in his career. Here he is in this game, and he turns his ankle and he’s hobbling and he has to leave. And now you wonder, ‘Oh no, please. This amazing game is not going to turn because the star player is out with an ankle injury.’ That was the other concern. [The Warriors] just keep overcoming these adversities to lead to what turned into one of the most spectacular endings in a regular-season game that the NBA has ever seen.

Fourth Quarter 

The Warriors hung tough without Curry. It was 57-52 when he exited with 10:29 left in the third quarter. And then, he returned with the Warriors down 70-63 and scored 11 points in the final five minutes of the quarter. The Thunder held a 12-point lead early in the fourth quarter, but the Warriors never went away and brought their best in the final minutes. 

Klay Thompson’s 3-pointer with 36 seconds to go in regulation made it a one-point game, 100-99, prompting the Thunder to take a timeout. Durant responded with a 3-pointer of his own to give the Thunder a 103-99 lead with just 14.5 seconds on the clock. Thompson went right by Andre Roberson for an easy layup from an out-of-bounds play after a Warriors timeout, cutting the deficit to two with 11.8 seconds. 

Though the Thunder had a timeout at their disposal, the Warriors pulled a perfect trap on Durant, who panicked and threw the ball to halfcourt. Thompson deflects it like a defensive back, Green saves the ball from going out of bounds and gets it back to Thompson, who finds Andre Iguodala for a last-second shot attempt.

Kerr: “Everything is just about strategy at that point. At that point, we’re in Steal, Foul. We call it Steal, Foul. You’re going for the quick steal. You don’t want to foul immediately, because you have time. Perfect trap. It’s exactly what you’re looking for. You’re looking for a moment to trap a guy, cause a difficult pass, make a steal, and it all happened exactly as such, and that’s when Andre got fouled.”

Breen: “It just shows the competitive nature, the back and forth of the game. Oklahoma City, you can’t stress enough what a great team they were. A 12-point lead, or let me put it this way, a 12-point deficit against a team with such an offensive bunch of weapons, like Oklahoma City, that’s not easy to overcome. So much has to go right. We always talk about these different big plays that have happened, and we always focus on the last play and Curry’s 3-pointers, it’s obviously the key to the whole thing. It’s why we talk about this game with such reverence. But there were so many other plays that led to that particular moment. If one of those plays doesn’t happen, the whole thing changes. And that’s the beauty of basketball. Sometimes it’s the big shot, but other times it’s so simple as hitting a big free throw or setting a great screen or getting a deflection. Those all incorporated what happened on that particular game down the stretch that set up the perfect ending for Steph.” 

The Free Throws 

Iguodala caught the ball with one second left and immediately had a good enough, and quick enough, pump fake to get Durant to leave his feet. Durant is called for a foul on Iguodala’s shot with 0.7 seconds left. On the season, Iguodala was shooting 61 percent from the free-throw line. In the game, he hadn’t shot a single free throw yet. Iguodala makes the first, confidently turns to the Warriors’ sideline and drains the second to tie the game and send it to overtime. 

Walking back to the Warriors’ bench, Iguodala shrugs his shoulders as if the two free throws were no big deal.

Kerr: “We get the steal, and then Andre makes a really ballsy play drawing the pump fake and then jumping into Kevin, knowing he was gonna have to make two free throws to tie the game, basically at the buzzer. And then he knocks them down. Andre, you know, not a great free-throw shooter either – a guy who has frequently struggled at the line in his career. Those were two amazing free throws to knock down.”

Breen: “From an announcer standpoint, when you have a game like that and big free throws are coming up, the first thing you do as a play-by-play announcer is you check how many free throws he shot that game. And then you check, is this a great free-throw shooter? Is this an average free-throw shooter? Is this a poor free-throw shooter? He clearly was not having a good season, percentage-wise. But this is one of the smartest players I’ve ever seen. He just had tremendous poise.”

Kerr: “Thinking about it now, it reminded me of when we beat Cleveland in the Finals. I think it was 2017, Game 5, he scored 20 points. It just seemed like the bigger the moment, the better shooter Andre became. And that was a good example.”

Breen: “Are you surprised that he gets the clutch free throws? Not really, because that’s who he was. Great players who have such mental toughness like Iguodala had, that’s what they do. Even a guy who shoots 61 percent from the line, he lives for that moment to show his mental toughness. That’s another thing that makes that game, that particular game, so great, is a player like that, who most people who played with him say he’s one of the all-time great teammates, is able to have his moment and calmly knock down those free throws.

Overtime 

The Thunder score the first five points of overtime. Durant fouls out in the first minute-plus and finishes with 37 points, 12 rebounds, five assists and seven 3-pointers. Curry then scores the Warriors’ first seven points of OT and the game is tied 110-110. Back and forth they go, with the Warriors never having the lead until Curry’s final shot. 

Before the infamous shot and Breen’s call, Curry’s Splash Brother, Thompson, displayed his two-way impact on both sides of the ball.

Clutch Klay 

A Roberson layup gives the Thunder a 118-115 lead with 33.9 seconds left in overtime. Kerr calls a timeout and draws up an out-of-bounds play from the right side where Curry is the passer. Thompson sets a screen for Green up top, back cuts off a Harrison Barnes screen and Green finds him in stride. Absorbing contact from Westbrook, Thompson completes a nifty up-and-under three-point play to tie the game, 118-118, with 29.5 seconds left.

Kerr: “It was a play we ran frequently that year. We had it in our book. It seemed like a good call at the time. It was a different option out of the play that Draymond and Klay sort of made up and ad-libbed. But that’s what basketball players do, you know? The play was something we had run all season long. The guys were very comfortable with it. They both made great reads. The And-1 was particularly fortuitous. To get the free throw on top of that changed the game entirely.”

Thompson then picked up Westbrook full court and ran off a Roberson screen to go 1-on-1 with him. Spectacular defense made Westbrook pick up his dribble and pass the ball to Kyle Singler, who gave it right back to Westbrook, who again tried to go 1-on-1 with Thompson.

No luck. Thompson forced Westbrook to attempt a leaning jumper to his left at the end of the shot clock. The ball bounces hard off the backboard and once off the rim, falling into Iguodala’s hands.

Breen: “Because Thompson is one of the best pure shooters the game has ever seen, Klay’s defense was often overshadowed. That’s the part of that team that I think sometimes doesn’t get the proper recognition. Nobody was better than him. We talk about players who have the ability to hit clutch shots. Well, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, and in this instance, Klay, he had the ability to make clutch defensive plays. So much is spoken about the offensive end, but that’s what made him such a special player, and that’s one of the key reasons, his defense, why they won all those championships.

The Shot

When Iguodala grabs the rebound, Curry begins asking for the ball on the left side. Kerr waits a split second and then motions for everybody to go. The Warriors still have one timeout left but opt not to use it with about five or six seconds remaining. Breen even says, “They do have a timeout, decide not to use it,” right before Curry lets it fly. 

Kerr: “If we didn’t have Steph Curry, we would have called a timeout, for sure. But because we had Steph, we knew with five seconds he’s gonna dribble up and shoot a 35-footer, and there’s a great chance it’s going in. And we were wrong. He ended up shooting a 40-footer. But it seemed like a much better option against such a long and athletic team, rather than face a set defense with five seconds left and in the front court, just let Steph go.”

Breen: “I understand that strategy, and a lot of coaches prefer to do that. The problem was, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of time, and even Steph says he wasn’t exactly sure where he was when he took the shot, because he could have taken another dribble or two to get a little closer. But he found the spot, and that’s what made it work, because the defense was scrambling in the open floor on a full-court situation. In hindsight, it clearly was the right call, but I’m sure that’s what Steve Kerr was thinking. Like, no, we’re not going to give them a chance to set up their defense. We’re going to let Steph work his magic.”

Kerr: “There was never any other option besides Steph pulling up and shooting. But as I said, I thought maybe he’d get a little closer. But knowing Steph, he likes the flair for the dramatic and I think he relished taking the shot from as deep as he did, honestly. Part of what makes him special is he’s a showman. And even under the most pressure, he wants to put on a show. He’s just one of a kind, and I think he had every awareness of what was happening in the moment, and he just couldn’t wait to shoot a 40-footer to end the game. That’s how confident he is.”

Breen: “As a play-by-play announcer, you just have to watch him and what he’s going to do. I did think it was a little early, but clearly he had the vision and he had the angle to get off his great shot.”

Both teams are scattering to run back. Curry takes three dribbles, barely crosses halfcourt, uses a stutter step and swishes from 38 feet away and less than a second still on the clock to give the Warriors the 121-118 lead for the win in the greatest regular season game in NBA history.

Kerr: “I just looked at Luke Walton and we just started laughing. I have so many great memories of just looking at Luke those two years when Luke was with us. We would just look at each other and shake our head and laugh, like, how lucky are we to be able to coach this guy and witness these miracles. It was a beautiful moment.”

Bang! Bang! Oh, What A Shot From Curry! 

Breen’s famous “Bang!” calls for big shots had become a staple, especially with Curry. On this night, in this moment, he let out his very first Double Bang, yelling, “Bang! Bang! Oh, what a shot from Curry!”

Kerr: “I think I saw it on SportsCenter that night. He got the double. Got the Double Bang. Pretty great.”

The fan came out of Breen. Admittedly, Breen had no idea he had just given Curry his very first Double Bang call, and still doesn’t remember saying the word twice.

Breen: “It was kind of an out-of-body experience. It was just, it was the buildup of the season. It was the buildup of this magical year that Curry was playing on a level that very few have ever played on. So all this buildup comes to this great game, and these two great teams, an amazing comeback, comes out of the locker room from an injury – it’s like one thing after another. If it’s a movie script, the producers are saying, nah, this could never possibly happen. He hits this extraordinary shot, and I just lost it.

“I talk about those moments you want to do justice for the player in their moment. You want to give the call the proper respect that it deserves. But in that time as a basketball fan, I think I became a fan as much as a broadcaster. A fan of the special ability of this young man, and a fan of the greatest game in the world to give the fans a chance to watch something like this. In many ways, yeah, I was a broadcaster calling it, but I was the basketball fan experiencing it. And I think that’s where it came out of because I just, I kind of lost it. 

“I do think the first time I heard it back, I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness, I sound like a screaming fool.’ It was an emotional call, because you knew you just witnessed something that was one of the great moments in NBA history.”

When did you first realize and understand you had made such an iconic call that will live forever?

Breen: “It’s still hard for me to understand. I think the reason that it resonates is because in many ways, and not to be overly dramatic, but that shot changed the NBA. The legend of Steph Curry was already on the way, but it went to another level with that shot. He was so relatable to so many people, that I think that’s an important part of it. He’s not this overpowering, 6-foot-8, 250-pound sculpted athlete. A lot of people could go down to their local park in a pickup game and there would be a guy his size playing. But he had this incredible talent that was produced, obviously God-given, but also with one of the most incredible work ethics. I think that can never be stated enough. 

“He made that shot in that moment because of all the work he put in when nobody was around. To see this young man, who not only has this great talent, but has such a beautiful humility about him, it just was a wonderful thing. He changed the definition of long-range shooting forever. Those shots that he takes now, that one is different because it’s in the final seconds, but a lot of these shots were once considered a bad shot and the coach would take you out of the game. Now it’s a part of the way the NBA is played more so every year, and it’s because of this fabulous talent who happened to hit a shot that won a game that everybody still talks about 10 years later.”

What Breen remembers next isn’t his call or the crowd’s reaction. It’s seeing Curry celebrate with his teammates and start dancing as the perfect representation of who he is and what that game was.

Breen: “I remember him dancing after hitting the shot. I don’t think he was in full shimmy mode by those days. He wasn’t doing the Night Night then. I think the fan in him came out as well. There was such joy in his face and his teammates’ faces. Obviously, we didn’t care who won from a broadcasting standpoint, but there was joy in everybody who watched, because you knew you just saw something special.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to call these games, and it’s an honor and a privilege to be involved in a moment like that, especially with a special player and a special man like Steph.”

Curry can’t wrap his head around it being 10 years since his shot and Breen’s call. He marvels at how spot on Breen was in the details and how easily he met the moment. “I’ve heard it enough now I could go word for word,” Curry says.

To put a bow on a night that forever will be part of Curry’s story, NBC Sports Bay Area asked him how he’d describe his shot and what followed. The answer was pure emotions from pure joy.

Curry: “I blacked out and lost my mind, for sure. For sure.”