Stephen Curry admits in a lengthy piece about pressure by Jackie MacMullan of ESPN that he was selfish following Kyrie Irving's now-iconic three-pointer with 53 seconds remaining in Game 7 of the 2016 Finals.

"I gotta go back at him," thought Curry.

Curry's hypothalamus, a small region of the brain located near the pituitary gland, sounded the alarm as he dribbled the ball up the floor. The sensation was different than what Curry experiences before big games. 

"It's an uneasy feeling," Curry said. "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."

Draymond Green screened Irving, which forced Kevin Love to switch onto Curry. Curry believed he could exploit the mismatch.

"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 tried to create space from Love and ultimately shot a three-pointer off the dribble with four seconds left on the shot clock that he missed.

"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."