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Draymond Green gestured to Steve Kerr across the court, strode toward him, then hugged and shook him so ferociously it looked like they might just stay fused together for a few blissful hours or days or decades.

It lasted only a few seconds in the middle of all the other Warrior celebrations after the buzzer sounded. But that hug felt like the summary of 12 years of success, pressure, rises, falls, comebacks, and just hanging on. Hanging on forever, if possible.

It wasn’t a play-in hug. It was hug for the ages, for the era, for the Warriors’ era.

So no, the Warriors are not done yet. Not as long as they have Stephen Curry making wild magic. Which they still do. Not as long as Draymond and Kerr keep everything else in order.

Not as long as there are nights like Wednesday in Inglewood, when the Warriors rallied and rallied again to beat the Clippers in a play-in game to set up Friday’s do-or-die game in Phoenix against the Suns to get into a first-round matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The stakes weren’t quite as high in this game as at the peak of this run, of course. The Warriors could lose Friday and would go right into the draft lottery as another non-playoff team.

But Curry has repeatedly said he doesn’t necessarily need the Warriors to return to their dominant days. He just craves meaningful basketball — games and shots and nervy moments that matter.

And this game, after this challenging regular season and 37-45 record, in these dwindling days of this dynasty, was meaningful in a lot of important ways. Not because it’s going to lead to the Warriors’ fifth championship of this era but because they knew that and still dug so deep.

Because the Warriors could’ve easily given up — on the season when Jimmy Butler went down, on Curry’s knee when he almost ran out of time this season, on this game several times — and instead they summoned the best of themselves one more time.

“It’s been such a tough year,” Kerr told reporters after the game. “But just to show what we’re made of, they’re made of. … I just told them with all the wins we’ve ever had here, a lot of them with a lot more at stake, this is right up there. Just because where we are and our age, the decline of our performance this year with the injuries, it was just a beautiful display of competitive will.”

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Curry was the focal point because he’s always the focal point; how can you quit when he’s 38 and refusing to stop? When he’s just back from that knee injury and still flying around, scoring 27 of his 35 points in the second half, hitting the go-ahead 3-pointer in the final minutes, and bellowing to everybody once the victory was wrapped up?

Give up on the season? Why in the world would you do that? Instead, Al Horford hit four titanic 3-pointers in the fourth quarter after a very shaky performance earlier. Kristaps Porzingis played his most emphatic game as a Warrior. Gui Santos played all but 50 seconds of the fourth quarter and went 3-for-3 for seven points in that period. And Draymond swarmed Kawhi Leonard all game then got two huge steals to help seal the game.

All of that. You don’t only fight and celebrate after championships. You do it with whatever roster you have left and you just keep fighting. You really savor it when you stay alive after so many have told you that your time has passed.

“That’s what we talk about, if we had any type of chance or hope to extend our season, I wanted to be out there to experience it,” Curry said. “To see play after play after play Al, KP, Gui hit some big shots, we kind of were able to stay with it. Obviously, I was able to contribute.

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“That was fun. That’s what you live for right there.”

You want to see a picture of pure satisfaction? Look at Curry’s face and hear the tone of his voice as he spoke to the Warriors social media team walking off the court.

The Warriors have every chance to beat the Suns on Friday. If that happens, they’ll be enormous underdogs against the defending champion Thunder — and the Warriors will have been on the road for more than a week heading into that prospective Game 1 in Oklahoma City on Sunday, while the Thunder have been resting.

Oh well. That’s the path for the Warriors. They’ve taken care of the first step. They’ve knocked off Kawhi and the Clippers. And I don’t think Curry & Co. will aim for anything less than giving the Thunder a scare or two next week.

“This is why Steph came back,” Kerr said. “Everybody out there who thought Steph should’ve taken the rest of the year off, this is what he does. This is who he is.

“If he can compete, he’s going to compete. It was just incredible to watch.”

For a more practical view, you could take note of this performance and picture what’s possible next season with Butler back and a few roster tweaks. Did you see Porzingis beaming throughout this game? You think he might want to keep riding with the Curry Experience into next spring if it’s contractually possible?

Yes, I think he might. And this is also why Draymond probably will decline his $27.7 million player option and take a multiyear deal at a lesser number, which, coupled with a moderate deal for Porzingis, could give the Warriors the flexibility to add a key player or two.

That’s how the glow of this moment can keep going into next season, and maybe some years beyond that. Even when things look bad for the Warriors — and that was much of this season — they’re capable of this kind of lightning.

“One thing we’ve always hung our hats on is not being frontrunners,” Draymond said. “It’s easy when everything going right to be upbeat, to believe, but who are you when everything’s going wrong? For us, that’s more motivating than anything.

“It’s like, yo, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong this year. And yet we still have a chance. So what will we do with that chance?”

The official Warriors’ legend will be all about championships, MVP trophies, champagne splashes, and glorious achievements against the greatest opponents.

But it will also include the guts and bravado it took to win a record 73 games in 2015-16, even though that season didn’t end with a banner. It should include the Game 7 victories in Sacramento in 2023 and in Houston in 2025, which also weren’t on the path to a title.

And it should definitely include this game. You had better believe that Curry, Kerr, and Draymond felt every bit of that on Wednesday.

“For one night, you know, we’re us,” Kerr said. “We’re champions again. I know that may sound crazy to everybody out there; it’s a play-in game. I don’t care. Just absolutely beautiful to watch.”

This whole thing would’ve been over a long time ago if the Warriors didn’t think like this and didn’t roar like this. But it’s still going. They’re still roaring. It’s tougher now. They’re not as great as they used to be. But that makes these moments even more precious and more meaningful.