Davis Detonates On AK47
Before Steph Curry and Steve Kerr, before the Splash Bros and the Dynatsy, there was Baron Davis and the 8-seed Warriors.
And on May 11, 2007, they were running away with Game 3 of the Western Conference Semifinals at Oracle Arena, up 119-99 on the Utah Jazz.
That's when Baron Davis went nuclear.
Davis took a feed at the top of the key, drove baseline against All World defender Andrei Kirilenko, the Russian whose lethal play earned him the nickname AK47, and exploded off two feet.
He brought the hammer down right on Kirilenko's head. Kirilenko collapsed under it. The crowd pop at Oracle was so deafening it registered seismic waves. Davis, whose body seemed to levitate an extra 6 inches, lifted his jersey over his chest and was hit with a technical foul that nobody cared about.
The dunk was an immediate poster and a meme before memes were even a thing. The defining image of the "We Believe" Warriors, the little 8-seed that could, had stunned the 67 win Dirk Nowitzki led Mavericks in Round 1 and turned a small market franchise into a national rallying cry. The lifted jersey pose became a t-shirt within hours.
You would think that this story has a glorious ending but Utah collected themselves, won the next two games, anded the snuffed out the dream. The dunk however, is immortal.
Mike Tirico couldn't contain himself as he belted out an "OHHHHH MANNN!!!" while the effervescent Hubie Brown added in a "Hello!"
The YouTube video has 2.1M views and is 18 years old. Lot's of comments remark how Tirico and Hubie and spellbound by the moment and are reacting as fans, not commentators.
Until Steph Curry arrived seven years later, it was the single most replayed Warriors highlight of the modern era.
