As I play in the 11th conference finals of my NBA career, it’s a great and humbling feeling to be in this position again.

In the midst of our journey this postseason, it’s important to keep a balance of our short and long term goals. The longer-term goal of winning a NBA championship requires a longer focus and a longer vision. But on the way to that, there are the shorter-term goals that you have to reach game-by-game, and day-by-day.

So far, we’ve been able to handle the responsibilities of that pretty well. We’ve proven to be very resilient over the course of these playoffs.

That resiliency doesn’t happen overnight or just in one moment. Our ability to come back from tough losses, to come back within a game, to get off to a bad start and still be able to stay positive and focused, to figure out ways to win — all of it is the result of habits that were put into practice on Day 1 of the season.

Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook have been the greatest examples of our collective will. Individually, they’ve had to show their toughness and resiliency. Whether they were having great games or not so great games, they always came back every game to give their teammates their best effort, and everything that they had. Serge Ibaka has done that as well these last two games.

Serge does so much for our team that I don’t even think we fully understand until he’s not out there. It’s not just the stats. The stats always even out in the NBA. It’s the plays behind the numbers, the substance in between the stats that oftentimes people don’t see. Serge changes more shots than he actually blocks. Those types of things are the difference between winning or losing.Russell is one of the best in the business, especially in his position, at making those plays like a team rebound, a deflection, a timely steal — a lot of different things that aren’t highlight plays

When your best players are making those extra effort plays, it makes it easier for the rest of the team to fall in line and follow their example. We’re very fortunate to have so many guys that bring that type of approach to the game every day.

ANOTHER MIRACLE, 10 YEARS LATER

The best example of that probably came in Game 5 of our series against the Clippers.

That was a special day for me from the get-go: the 10-year anniversary of one of the most memorable moments of my career, the Point Four shot against the Spurs. Going into the day, I had a feeling that something good was going to happen. I didn’t know how it would impact our team, but I just felt like something good was coming.

Coming off of the shoulder injury in Game 2, it had really been a tough series for me. I really had to manage that injury, and spent most of the time on the bench. Game 5 was really the first game since my injury where I was really able to get in there and have an impact in the first half. I felt good about that.

That was such a big swing game for our team after experiencing such a tough loss in Game 4. We felt like we controlled Game 4, and gave up the game there at the end.

But that’s how sports work, particularly in the playoffs. There is an ebb and flow to the playoffs that is very different from game-to-game in the regular season. In just about every series I can remember being a part of — especially those that have gone five, six, seven games — there have always been those type of moments where all it takes is one play to turn the momentum in the game.

So even though we went down big early in that game, we just kept playing, and didn’t give up on it. It would’ve been really easy to pack it in at some point. When we were down seven points with 50 seconds left, it would have been easy to say, “All right, we’ll get them next time.”

But that’s not in our DNA as a team.

Russell and Kevin made some fantastic plays down the stretch. We played some great defense as a team and we just figured out a way. That’s what you have to do. You just figure out a way to keep grinding and keep chipping away.

Those are really the moments that define a championship team.

If you think about any individual or team champion, there are always those times when it looks it might be the end, where they’re not going to make it. You look at a championship boxer like Floyd Mayweather. There’s going to be a moment in a fight at some point where people start to doubt whether he can win — where he gets knocked down in a round, or something is not going his way. But the best teams, the best fighters, are the ones that can respond in the face of adversity or doubt.

Every team I’ve ever been on that’s been able to play deep into the playoffs, there have been a lot of those moments. Maybe it wasn’t seven or eight points in 50 seconds. But we went down early in the game by 10, 12 or 14 points — or by 14 points in the third quarter — and we had to have that tough chin and respond.

Game 5 was that moment for this team and we used it to go on and finish off the series in six.

BATTLE OF THE BEST IN THE WEST

Despite how crazy everything was in the first rounds of the playoffs and all the excitement around it, it strikes me that it’s still coming down to the top two teams in each conference — the teams that were the most consistent throughout the regular season.

It goes to show how much the regular season does matter, despite this prevailing belief to the contrary. The truth is this: The regular season is when you become who you are. It’s when you develop the habits and the foundation of being a champion.

You can’t just do that in the playoffs.

Over last three seasons, the Thunder and the Spurs are the two teams that have consistently been at the top of the Western Conference standings — winning 50 plus games, almost 60 games every year these last few years — and we have each advanced into the NBA Finals once. I don’t know if there are any other teams other than Miami that have played at such a high level for so long on a consistent basis, night in and night out.

Since I’ve been in the league, whether it was with the Lakers, the Jazz or now the Thunder, it’s been almost clockwork. To win the West, you’re more than likely going to have to play the Spurs at some point.

The thing is, as well as we’ve gotten to know San Antonio through these repeated meetings, you can’t step on the court relaxing in any way.

Obviously, I personally have a long history with the Spurs, and their fans definitely boo and let me know how they feel. I don’t know if it’s personal or if it’s just I’m not on the Spurs, I’m on the other team.

Perhaps they’re just wondering when I’m going to retire.

I don’t read too much into it. But when you’ve played against a team so many times, there’s definitely a familiarity to the matchup. It’s not a comfort that relaxes you, but it never hurts to be familiar with the surroundings. You know, in a sense, what to expect and what you’re going to have to deal with.

It makes for a really fun experience. As an athlete, very few things really get you going and feeling great about what you can do as a player and as a team than going out on the road and having to figure out a way to win big games.

That’s what we’re going to have to figure out how to do tonight.