Kerr on another Warriors loss: ‘I thought our guys were great’

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — They did what they could, what they were capable of, which pleased their coach, Steve Kerr, if not the fans. It was another loss for the Warriors, the 10th in a row, their longest winless streak in 17 years.

And yet not just another loss.

This season is going nowhere. We knew it the night Steph Curry broke his hand, the fourth game of the schedule, against Phoenix here at Chase Center. And we know it now, two and a half months later.

You can’t lose your stars, in a league where stars control the game, and not expect to lose games.

After that, with Kevin Durant gone and with Klay Thompson in rehab, the question was what the kids on the court could do, the young kids like Eric Paschall and Jordan Poole, the older kids like Willie Cauley-Stein and D’Angelo Russell.

They could stumble and bumble and look awful, as they did a couple of nights back against Dallas. Or they could perform as well as possible against a team acknowledgably superior, take the lead, be there at the end and then fail in overtime, as the Dubs did, 134-131, on Thursday night against Denver.

It’s a familiar story, if a sad one. The other team is better, and even though the Nuggets were without key players, Jamal Murray and Paul Millsap, even though they had played the previous night, even though they trailed by 19 points in the first quarter, they won.

A year ago, two, three, four, five years ago, the Warriors would have won. But this is now. This isn’t then. And Kerr seemed less concerned with the defeat — hey, they have the worst winning percentage in the NBA — then the undeniable fact his team was wonderfully competitive.

“I thought our guys were great tonight,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr. They were.

Not great, compared to the Warriors who had the Splash Brothers, who had the settling influences of Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston, who had the unstoppable Durant and the fiery Draymond Green.

But great for what they provided.

Great for giving the Warriors insight to what they can do — and what they can’t.

The Nuggets came in with a 28-12 record, the Warriors 9-33. What happened was hardly a surprise. Denver outscored the Warriors by 12 points, 40-28, in the fourth quarter. Good teams find a way. So do teams that aren’t good.

“They were going to (Nikola) Jokic, who might be the best center in the league,” said Kerr. Jokic had 23 points, 10 in the fourth quarter, 12 rebounds and two blocked shots.

“One of the best offensive teams in the league,” Kerr said of Denver, “and they are a tough team to guard. So the key in the fourth quarter, any time you are trying to close the game, you want to execute and not turn the ball over. We had a couple of turnovers that really hurt us.”

A couple turnovers that maybe don't happen with more experience and a teammate or two, in addition to Draymond Green, who will seem less flustered when under pressure.

“Defensively,” said Kerr, “we battled, and we were trying. But (Denver) got going. They are capable of doing that. I’m proud of our guys. I feel bad for them because they played well enough to win and just couldn’t do it.”

There’s a painful reminder of the Warriors of years past. They would take the lead, hang in and then fade.

“I mean 18 turnovers didn’t help,” said Damion Lee, “and their shooters got going. Of course we could have played better, but you’ve got to give them credit.”

Lee, who had been on one of those stressful two-way contracts (up and back between San Francisco and Santa Cruz), was playing his first game after signing a three-year contract with the Warriors. He had 21 points (Alec Burks led the Dubs with 25) and six assists, one of which enabled Eric Paschall to score with two seconds left in regulation.

“The ball tends to find energy,” said Lee. “As long as everybody’s touching it, make the easy play and get back on defense.”

This season, no play is easy for the Warriors.

Last-place Warriors back on their treadmill

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — ESPN has an ulterior motive, if a very understandable one.

The network wants us to watch. So on the screen for a game that, except for one great player, Giannis Antetokounmpo, was of no national interest, it kept listing his team, Milwaukee, as having the best record in the NBA East.

The other team, the Warriors, the opponent, were “No. 15 in the West.” Impressive. Until you realize there are only 15 teams.

Indeed the Dubs are last.

This isn’t, as they used to say, man-bites-dog news, but nearly half way through this very predictable and yet still very distressing season there was a hope the Dubs would be off the treadmill.

However, they’re still going nowhere, at least in terms of results. Well, actually they’ve returned to going nowhere.

There was a four-game win streak a few days back, but the 107-98 loss Wednesday night at Chase Center was their sixth in a row.

At least the Warriors didn’t anger coach Steve Kerr with listless play, as they did two nights earlier at Sacramento when he screamed obscenities at the officials and earned an ejection and a $25,000 fine.

Against the Bucks, Kerr liked the effort, which when a team isn’t any good is about all anyone can wish. The Dubs kept falling behind, as was expected, and then kept battling back, which wasn’t expected.

The Warriors climbed to within five points with a minute, six seconds remaining. Not bad, in relative terms, if you’re not going to win.

The Warriors' games this season, with Steph Curry and Klay Thompson out because of injuries, are comparable to those of the bad old days. The only reason to go — assuming you didn’t put down a king’s ransom for season tickets at the billion-and-a-half-dollar Chase — is to watch the visiting team.

It was like that over the years, first with Bill Russell and the Celtics, then Michael Jordan and the Bulls, then Shaq O’Neal and Kobe Bryant of the Lakers. I skipped Kareem and Magic, but how much pain can one absorb?

Anyway, the star was there but he was on the wrong team, beating the Warriors. The 7-foot Antetokounmpo was last season’s MVP and dreamers think a future Warrior.

Giannis didn’t have his best game, but 30 points, 12 rebounds and four assists isn’t terrible, either.

“Even when he doesn’t shoot well,” said Kerr (Antetokounmpo was 10 for 21, 1 for 7 on 3-pointers), “he has a huge impact. We tried to make him work. We did a good job, but we just couldn’t hang in there.

“We played great defense in the first half against the best team in the league.”

Does that count for something, especially to the home crowd? The people come, but they aren’t very enthusiastic. That the Warriors change uniforms and the court (both read “San Francisco” on Wednesday) doesn’t seem to mean much to fans who watched their team win a record 73 games one year and reach the NBA finals five straight seasons.

They’re spoiled. And they should be. Going back in time doesn’t work. Alec Burks, a journeyman in the most positive sense of the word, did score 19 for the Warriors, and the great hope of the future, Alen Smailagic, had 10 (8 in the first half when he led everyone). Still, there wasn’t a chance the Warriors were going to win.

The Bay Area is sport’s Broadway, not the bushes. The crowd is paying for greatness. It got its money’s worth with Milwaukee. The Warriors? They’re No. 15 in the West. And there only are 15 teams.

Then Draymond came back in

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SAN FRANCISCO — Then Draymond came back in. Alec Burks said it. An All-Star is supposed to make a difference, right? And Draymond Green, All-Star, emotional leader, has made a difference, in games that have become so much a part of the Warriors’ legacy.

Or, as on Monday night, in a game less consequential, other than it was responsible for the first two-game win streak of a season now finding itself.

Yes, two in a row, which compared to those glory days a few seasons past, the 24 straight victories early in the 2015 season, seems almost unworthy of being mentioned.

But that was then, and this is now, the tumult and frustration without the departed (and hurt) Kevin Durant and the still present but equally injured Klay Thompson and Steph Curry.

No Kevin, no Steph, no play. But plenty of Draymond. And with the 113-104 triumph over the Minnesota Timberwolves, a second win in a row.

Which most likely is as far as it goes, since next under the tree is the Houston Rockets on Christmas Day.

“We need this regardless of what is coming next,” said Steve Kerr, the Warriors’ coach. “We just needed to win a couple games in a row to get a little momentum and feel good.”

It was the mediocre Timberwolves, having cut a 24-point third-quarter deficit to six points with six minutes to go in the fourth quarter, who had the “mo.”

“Then,” said Burks, “Draymond came back in and got D-Lo (D’Angelo Russell) a shot. We were just playing out of character, and they went on a couple of runs, which allowed them to come back.”

But only so far.

Burks, a guy who’s been tossed around the league — the Warriors are his fourth teams in eight seasons — has been making his points, literally (25 Monday night) and symbolically (his observations). He talks quickly and softly, but his words, like his shots, hit the mark.

“I think my teammates are putting me in the right position,” he said about his ability to score, “and Steve (Kerr) is trusting me to have the ball in my hand and make plays for myself and others.”

One of those others is Russell, who had 30 points. People knew D-Lo could score and, finally healthy, he is proving people correct. The question now is how D-Lo and Curry, who is supposed to be back in late February, will pair together. Maybe not the Splash Brothers redux, but perhaps there will be a lot of water flying and baskets dropping.  

Curry, his left hand in that cast, and Thompson, recovering from the torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left leg, both were at Chase Center with their teammates Monday night, although unable to play.

“Just having their presence, especially for the young guys,” Green said of the contributions from Curry and Thompson at games or practice.

“Those (young) guys haven’t been around as much. I’ve always said when you’re hurt, you’re just not a part of the team. These young guys look up to them. They are legends, superstars, heroes to some of these young guys.”

So too is Green. At the moment, Andre Iguodala, Shawn Livingston and Durant gone, Curry and Thompson rehabbing, Draymond is the only player on the Warriors still active from the teams in five straight NBA finals.

He hectors teammates, yells at officials and keeps believing.

“I think our younger guys are getting some experience,” Green said about the improved defense. “Starting to figure out rotations, and that makes a difference.”

Green was enthusiastic about the inside play of center Willie Cauley-Stein, who had three blocked shots Monday night. “He made several plays tonight at the rim,” Green said of Cauley-Stein, “giving us the spark (on defense) he also gives us on offense. The way he runs the runs the floor, like the play he got the block and then sprinted out and got the dunk.”

So Draymond, how does it feel to win two in a row? “It feels bleeping amazing,” he all but shouted. “I never thought I’d be so excited for two regular season wins in my life.”

Warriors-Knicks: Bad teams but a good game

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SAN FRANCISCO — This is what keeps us interested, even when there’s no reason to be. Two bad teams playing a game that was very good, perhaps not technically but very much so emotionally.

The eternal line in sport is “you never know.” You never know when the last-place Knicks, who had lost 10 in a row, and the next-to-last place Warriors would compete as they did Wednesday night and play a game that makes you say, “I wish I was there.”

Especially if you owned one of those high-price Chase Center season tickets and weren’t there.

Yes, it was another Warriors loss, the Knicks winning 124-122, and now Golden State at 5-21 has replaced the 5-20 Knicks as the team with the worst record in the NBA.

So if you were looking for something that might be showing up on ESPN, this wasn’t it.

But for one game out of the 82-game schedule, for a night’s entertainment, it was terrific — the Warriors, looking unenthusiastic, down by 22 points just before half, tying the game on a seemingly impossible, virtually on the sidelines 3-pointer by D’Angelo Russell with 5.5 seconds left in regulation and then losing.

It was so terrible that just before intermission the fans booed, even though they should know, as Warriors coach Steve Kerr reminded that, with Klay Thompson and Steph Curry injured and a ton of kids on the roster, this will be a learning season.

With Russell, 32 points, showing why the Warriors took him in a sign-and-swap deal with the Brooklyn Nets for Kevin Durant, fans were celebrating after the fourth-quarter heroics.

The Knicks have been awful for the longest time, weeks, months, years, and only a few days ago in the usual desperation move by an organization that is caught between panic and ineptitude, New York fired head coach David Fizdale. On Wednesday night the new guy, interim coach Mike Miller, got his first win.

“We know there are tough stretches,” was Miller’s analysis of getting off the schneid, “but we are playing the right way, and we are putting ourselves in position to win.”

The Warriors are putting themselves in position to promote. The tenet in advertising is to sell the sizzle if you don’t have the steak. It was Star Wars night Wednesday at Chase. The Force wasn’t with the Dubs.

The Warriors switch uniforms from game to game; among the half dozen is the one that says “The Town,” supposedly honoring the community the Warriors fled after some 70 years to come to Chase. There’s also San Francisco, which was in use before Franklin Mieuli, the late owner, decided to switch to “The City.”

This is the marketing era, but one surmises that if Klay, Steph, Durant and Draymond Green could show up healthy, white T-shirts would be perfect attire.

The thinking was Curry and Russell would provide the offense this season, but Steph is out with that broken hand, and Russell has been limited by a thumb injury, missing numerous games.

But he was there against the Knicks, and if nothing else his 3-pointer will become part of Warriors history in a quite unhistorical season.

Asked how he created space for the shot, pinched between a defender and the sideline, Russell said, “Honestly, I feel like if I dribbled I would be helping him guard me. I was just trying to be as crafty as I can and get a shot up.”

Kerr was asked what if anything the Warriors learned from the game in this learning season.

“I think they learned it’s a long game," he said, "and there is lots of time to comeback. At halftime we were down 18, and we were sort of lifeless. We got back into the game petty quickly in the third quarter. That’s a good lesson for young players.”

The lesson for everyone is that any game can turn out to be a memorable one.

Struggling Warriors are the poster kids for Raiders’ Jon Gruden

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — They have become the poster kids. For another sport.

Whenever Jon Gruden wants to make a comparison of all the ills that have beset his Raiders football team, as he did the other night, he refers to the Warriors basketball team.

Not that in anything beyond misery there are any true comparisons between an NBA franchise that was on top of the sporting world and, for one reason or another has tumbled to the bottom, and an NFL team still trying to get out of its own way.

The Raiders have been overwhelmed by injuries, needing to rely on new players. ”The Warriors,” said Gruden, “have been going through the same processes.”

What the Raiders went through Sunday at the Oakland Coliseum was a 42-21 pummeling by the Tennessee Titans. Then a few miles and a few hours away, at Chase Center, the Warriors were defeated 110-102 on Monday night by another team from Tennessee, the Grizzlies.

Tough times. Maybe everywhere, except in the 49er camp. Tom Brady, of all people, was booed at home. Who cares about what a man or team did last season or over the many seasons? What have you done lately?

And why have you done it?

“It’s just the nature of sports,” said Steve Kerr, the Warriors' coach. “People expect that if you’ve won, you’re going to win forever. It doesn’t work that way. A team tries to do its best, set realistic goals and tries to avoid the expectations and outside noise.”

Which, of course, is impossible.

That noise, the ranting on TV and radio, the grumbling of the fans, the complaints of a tormented coach, is what sports is all about. Always has been what sports were about.

Even limited success, then, should be cherished. Washington won the World Series. After years in the wilderness that should be enough, but it won’t. More, more, more.          

What the Patriots are dealing with, what the Raiders are dealing with, what the Warriors are dealing with, what the New York Giants — who Monday night lost their ninth in a row — are dealing with is losing.

Look what the Warriors had. And what they have. For five seasons, they were playing for championships. This season, they’re playing to get better so maybe someday in the future, with the big guys back, again they’ll be playing for championships.

“We faced an unprecedented situation,” reminded Kerr, who rarely reviews the damage. “Losing two All-Stars (the now departed Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson) to season-ending injuries within two games of the NBA finals. Something that’s never happened before.

“Then this season starts and whatever, it was, three, four games, Steph (Curry) goes down with a broken hand, and your team is decimated by injury. It changed the outlook of the entire season.”

From being a contender to being ignored.

A year ago, the Warriors were never off TV. Now they’re never on, at least on the national networks. Already two Warriors games have been pulled from prime time. 

One day you’re famous, the next you’re virtually nonexistent. Like the line about a tree falling in the forest, does an NBA game count if nobody knows it was played?

Tickets are expensive, especially in new arenas like Chase. As Kerr pointed out, expectations are big, even when that’s unrealistic. After the loss to a bad Memphis team Monday night, the Warriors are 5-20, the worst record in the league.

Will a fan base accustomed to winning and having purchased season tickets that run into the thousands be willing to support a lot of kids still learning pro basketball? It’s sort of like going to a Broadway show and getting a cast of backups.

Kerr has implied it was acceptable. Until Monday night.

“This was a disappointing game,” said Kerr. “I thought the energy was pretty good early, but the execution was really poor. Often it was carelessness... We have such great fans, and they are dying to cheer for us. We’ve had games here this year where the fans have loved the effort. Tonight, I didn’t think we responded well enough.”

At least there were no boos.

Warriors experiencing richness of the ‘taste of defeat

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

SAN FRANCISCO — Bill Bradley knew about winning. He played for the championship Knicks, then was a U.S. Senator. And about losing, failing in bids to become a candidate for president.

”The taste of defeat,” Bradley wrote of his career, “has a richness of experience all its own.”

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Chris Mullin knew all about Warrior rookie Paschall

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SAN FRANCISCO — Chris Mullin knew all about Eric Paschall. “He used to kick our fanny,” said Mullin. That was when Mullin was coach at St. John’s and Paschall was a starter for rival Villanova.

Now Mullin is working as TV analyst for the his old NBA team, the Warriors, and Paschall is making an impact for his new NBA team, the Warriors, that not many other than Mullin knew was possible.

On Monday night, Paschall, a rookie, the 41st overall pick in this summer’s draft, had 34 points and 11 rebounds, and the Warriors — exhale, please — finally escaped the Curse of the Chase, defeating Portland 127-118, the first win in their new building.

It was going to come some night. After all, nobody goes 0-41 on their home court. But the Dubs had been without a victory in their previous four games at Chase Center, so there was a bit of anxiety.

Without Klay Thompson, injured knee, cheering from the bench, and Steph Curry, watching on TV at home, his broken left hand in a cast, the Warriors are not going to be a playoff team.

Yet with Paschall and another rookie, Kyle Bowman, playing well, the Dubs won. And that was despite Draymond Green missing the game because of a sprained injured finger.

These Warriors are not your father’s Warriors. Or even those of your brother, who would boast of those five straight finals appearances. These Warriors are a lot of guys who won’t get much attention from ESPN but are figuring out what the pro game is all about.

And keeping coach Steve Kerr as satisfied as anyone could be with a 2-5 overall record. He’s looking for hustle, for improvement, for basketball smarts. And slowly, progressively, he’s getting it.

And so are the suddenly alert sellout crowds, the fans Monday night responding vocally when, glorioski, they realized they were about to witness a small slice of history, the first Warriors victory at Chase.

Also a large slice of Paschall, a 6-foot-6, 255-pound forward who started his undergraduate career at Fordham, sat out a year and then transferred to Villanova, where he helped win the 2018 NCAA Championship.

“We really liked Eric because of his strength and his power,” said Kerr. “He was undersized, but these days, at that four position (strong forward), as long as you are really strong with that wingspan — well, we’ve seen it the last few years with Draymond.

“We felt Eric had a chance to have a similar impact, somebody you plug in and play particularly because he played four years (actually three) in a great college program. He didn’t look like a rookie at all from the first day of practice.”

He looked like a star Monday night on his 23rd birthday, scoring 17 points in the first quarter.

Apropos of nothing but pertinent to everything is the observation-joke about Michael Jordan’s career at North Carolina where he was restricted by the system, that the only person who could hold Jordan under 30 points a game was Dean Smith, his coach.

So Monday night Kerr alluded to that, substituting Villanova coach Jay Wright for Smith. Asked if he thought Paschall could hit the 30-point mark, Kerr answered, “Yes. I told Eric the only guy who could hold him under 30 points was Jay Wright. Jay’s my guy. I just wanted to say that.”

What Paschall, a humble sort, said was that confidence is behind his success. He believes in himself. And Kerr and Paschall’s teammates seem very much to share that belief.

“My teammates just find me and allow me to make plays,” said Paschall. “We have a great young group that just wants to play together, and we play hard. I felt like tonight we had fun.”

If getting that first win at home isn’t fun, they’re in the wrong business.

Green takes the floor on Warriors media day

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

SAN FRANCISCO — He’s not afraid to defend LeBron. He’s not afraid to take a shot when the clock is running down. So why should Draymond Green be afraid to speak from the heart, a characteristic that doesn’t make him much different than others in his sport?

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Warriors splash along on defense

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND — This is the way it’s done when Kevin Durant, the man his coach called the best basketball player on earth, can’t play.

There’s a stifling defense that keeps the other team from making even a single 3-pointer in the second quarter.

There’s a couple of guys nicknamed the Splash Brothers who couldn’t be defended — at least the way the Portland Trail Blazers attempted, with big men below the free throw line.

There’s a group of reserves, Kevon Looney, Alfonzo McKinnie, Shaun Livingston, Jordan Bell, Jonas Jerebko, Quinn Cook, that lends truth to the Warriors’ slogan, “Strength in Numbers,” and gives support to a team without the injured Durant and injured DeMarcus Cousins.

The Blazers hung in for a while, showed the style and talent that on Sunday enabled them to beat Denver and advance to the NBA Western Conference final. But the Warriors are the two-time champions, and they were playing at home, Oracle Arena, Tuesday night. and it was no surprise the Dubs won, 116-94.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr told us the Blazers barely had time to get to the Bay Area and get suited up.

“We were able to finish our last series on Friday,” Kerr said of the win over the Houston Rockets, “and they (Portland) had a tough game 7 in Denver, and the quick turnaround, so the schedule favored us.”

Unquestionably, but history also favors the Warriors, who have been to the NBA finals four straight years, winning three of those, and have all-stars such as Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and the absent Durant.

In betting, you stick with a winner until he loses. The Warriors so far have shown no tendency to lose.

Curry had 36 points, Thompson 26. The Warriors shot 50 percent (51 on threes) and limited the Blazers to 36 percent. If Portland hadn’t made 27 of 31 free throws, it wouldn’t even have been in the game.

“I thought the key stretch for us,” said Kerr, “was the first five minutes of the fourth quarter.”

The Warriors led 77-71 after three. Quickly enough, it was 97-81.

“They got loose in the fourth quarter and had, what 39,” said Terry Stotts, the Portland coach. “But going into the fourth quarter, down six, finding ways to hang in on a night we were struggling offensively.”

Struggling because when the Warriors are at their best they are brilliant defensively, forcing bad shots, grabbing rebounds and then racing toward their own basket for a score.

“It’s just one game,” reminded Stotts. “I know they gave Damian (Lillard) a lot of attention. They clogged the paint. We didn’t finish the opportunities when we had them. So when you turn the ball over and don’t shoot well and don’t finish around the basket, we’ve got to look for other things.”

Lillard is the Oakland kid — “I could walk home from here,” he said during the post-game inteview. He showed up wearing an Oakland Athletics jersey and with an accurate account of why, averaging 28 a game, he scored just 19.

“They gave a lot of attention to the ball when I was coming off screens,” said Lillard. “Even when I was in isolation situations I was seeing two people. I think it was obvious they were trying to make things hard for me, sending two guys at me. I couldn’t get an attempt up even if I was trying to force it.”

The Warriors didn’t have that problem, not with Andrew Bogut, Looney and Green setting up screens for Steph and Klay. 

“It was a nice flow,” said Curry. “I mean, it’s fun when we’re at our best in terms of everybody feeling like they are a threat ... It puts so much pressure on the defense.”

The other defense. The Warriors defense was able to put on pressure of its own.

‘An unbelievable victory,’ said Warriors coach

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND — So much has been said about the Warriors, their shooting, their defense and all the other facets that are part of winning basketball. But maybe, in this great run of a half decade, not enough emphasis has been put on a word that their coach, Steve Kerr, used on Wednesday night after a game as wild and emotional as any: guts.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Kerr on Durant: ‘He’s the most skilled basketball player on earth’

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND, Calif. — The question was of the present. The answer connected with the past.

Someone asked Steve Kerr whether he had seen anyone play as great in four consecutive games as has Kevin Durant, now the main star on Kerr’s team of stars, the Golden State Warriors.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Durant on Warriors’ woes: ‘You feel like you’re in a bottomless pit’

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND — Kevin Durant has it all figured out. “They’re playing loose, with nothing to lose,” he said about the other team, the Los Angeles Clippers, the team that right there on the floor of the Oracle ran circles, rings and cubes around the Warriors.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Is it a Final Four without Duke? It is with Izzo

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

MINNEAPOLIS — It’s gray and gloomy, which is not unusual this time of year in Minnesota; perfect weather for walking through the enclosed passageways from one downtown building to another — gerbil tunnels, they’re called — or hosting an NCAA final that doesn’t seem like an NCAA final.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Warriors play like the champions they are

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND — This is what happens when a good team — well, the best team until proven differently, and it wasn’t proven Tuesday night — decides to pull up its socks, shut down the opposition and shut up a few critics.

Decides to play with the skill, passion and verve — and arrogance — of a champion.

It stumbles around for a minute or two, then locks in on the task at hand, showing everyone, most of all the other team that, hey guys, we’ve only been teasing the last month or so. The coach said this one is important. So let’s take his advice to heart.

You were worried about the Warriors? Relax. “The guys were ready to play,” said Warrior coach Steve Kerr. Ready and willing, and able to crush the Denver Nuggets, 116-99, to all but keep the Nuggets from the NBA Western Conference title the Warriors will regain.

They’ve been playing with a vengeance the last few games, physical and verbal, drawing technicals, getting ejections — Tuesday night it was Kevin Durant in the third quarter after some brilliant play and caustic words. Sunday night it was DeMarcus Cousins, bounced in the second quarter of the rout of Charlotte for a flagrant foul 2.

And then news came down from on high, NBA headquarters in New York, that for their sarcasm and complaints of some egregious calls in that one-point overtime loss at Minnesota on March 29, the league got into the bank accounts of Durant, Steph Curry and, yes, Draymond Green.

But the only real worry is that Durant and Green, who each now have 15 T’s for the season, will be assessed a 16th and be suspended. Which, being the veterans they are, is unlikely to happen. And when Kerr was asked if he thought the officials would hold a grudge, he doubted it.

What you shouldn’t doubt is the way the Warriors dominated this game. They took to heart the frequent reminders from Kerr to protect the ball and play defense, both accomplished after a ragged start, which the coach said was caused by the Warriors being too hyped.

The Warriors kept the Nuggets to 37.5 percent (the Dubs shot 54.3 percent). The Warriors had 55 rebounds (Denver 40). The only negative was that the Warriors had 23 turnovers (Denver 15).

It was 59-43 at the half, the second quarter ending with a resounding Durant dunk that excited his teammates as much as it did the usual sellout crowd at Oracle Arena.

Durant had 17 points, Cousins 28, Curry 17 and Klay Thompson 13. Durant was ejected with 8:21 to go in a third quarter that was getting a bit out of hand. Kevin didn’t like the way he had been muscled and let the officials — and spectators within hearing distance — know as much.

“I thought he deserved the first technical,” said Kerr, “but I didn’t think he deserved the second one. I was very surprised.”

Presumably Durant was very agitated, but he left the building before anyone other than his teammates could find out.

Pre-game, Kerr was in high praise of Durant, who he said was “one of five guys who can put up huge numbers,” but also understands the game so well he is willing to pass, rebound and play defense as well as take shots.

“He’s one of the guys who can score 40, 50, whatever,” Kerr pointed out about Durant. “Kevin knows. It’s an incredible luxury to have not only that talent but someone willing to do whatever is best for his teammates.”

Getting ejected wasn’t what was best, but sometimes a person has to take a stand.

Curry just took his usual variety of shots, and his 3-pointer with 7:22 left gave him five or more 3s in a career-best nine straight games. Curry now has 16,236 points, moving him ahead of Chris Mullin (16,235) on the Warriors’ all-time list.

“It kind of caught me off guard,” said Curry, “but it’s a very special night understanding what Chris Mullin was able to do in a Warriors uniform. A pretty cool moment.”

That for a guy and a team that were quite hot — Kevin Durant by whatever definition you choose.