Steph on LeBron’s winner: ‘Great players make great plays’

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Maybe it was appropriate. Steph Curry, who so often makes the long shots, being able to take the long view.

He didn’t like the result, getting beat 103-100 by the Lakers in the play-in game Wednesday night — the way he so frequently has won — but he relished the competition.

This was what he remembered, the excitement of the postseason, which he and the Warriors had missed since that fateful NBA final of injuries and defeat two years ago.

So tough this game, so emotional — head coach Steve Kerr used the term “disappointing” — and yet still so reassuring.

A game that reminded him, that reminded us, of the thrill and tension when every basket and every turnover become critical.

Curry, the NBA scoring champion and presumptive third-time MVP, joined the Lakers’ LeBron James to help make the evening nothing short of a Hollywood premier, exactly what league execs could have dreamed.

You had the two biggest stars in the game, Curry, who scored 37, and LeBron James, who as brilliant players are apt to do, hitting the winning basket from maybe 30 feet — a Curry-type-shot — with 58 seconds remaining.

That sent the Lakers into the playoffs at Phoenix and sent the Warriors into another play-in game, against the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night at Chase Center.

But neither Curry nor Kerr was that interested in what was coming, They preferred to ruminate about what had taken place — how the Warriors, with the defense they developed over the weeks, built a 13-point lead in the first half and then under pressure from L.A.’s fine defense gave it up on turnovers and fouls.

“This is a bitter pill to swallow,” said Kerr. “This was our game, and we couldn’t get it done.”

They couldn’t even though the Warriors’ Draymond Green slowed Anthony Davis. Even though Andrew Wiggins shoved and battled LeBron.

But as Curry, who knows all about excellence — five trips to the NBA finals — said when asked about LeBron’s game-winner, “Great players make great plays.”

And make the opposing team hurt.

“He proved why he’s the best player in the world,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said of James. 

LeBron was hit in the eye under the rim as he grabbed a rebound and made the decisive basket.

“After the finger in the eye, I was seeing three rims,” said James, sounding like an actor in a an old cowboy film, “and shot at the one in the middle. By grace I was able to knock it down.”

It wasn’t grace, it was talent..

According to ESPN statistics, that was the longest go-ahead shot in the final three minutes of his career.
Said Curry, “It’s a great shot. Broken play . . . thinking he was out of the play. They found him. He got his balance back in time and knocked it down.

“That was a tough one because you really don’t expect it to go in. But everything changed when it goes in.”

Kerr was both distressed and magnanimous. A few months back, when the Warriors had lost Klay Thompson with the torn Achilles and they were trying to build a team, he probably would have been satisfied with taking the Lakers to the final minute.

But with Wiggins playing like the No. 1 overall draft pick he was and with Juan Toscano-Anderson the surprise he has been, a loss, even to the defending NBA champs, was a downer.

“I’m very proud of the way the way we played,” Kerr said.

He ought to be. Proud and disappointed.

After a beer and the TV remote, for Kerr it’s the Lakers

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No plans for Steve Kerr, and no worries. Both could come later. His Sunday evening would be simple enough. As he said, “A beer and a TV clicker.”

He would watch basketball on the tube, as would so many others, if with a considerably different approach.

To find out the next opponent for his Warriors.

And now he knows, as we all know — it will be the Lakers, Wednesday in Los Angeles. Maybe yet another surprise in a season of surprises. At least for the Warriors. Most of all for the Warriors.

A couple months ago, the Dubs, getting adjusted, seemed without a chance, But Sunday afternoon they closed the regular season with a sixth straight win, 113-102 over the Memphis Grizzlies at Chase Center, to get the eighth spot in the NBA’s Western Conference.

Yes, Steph Curry was the star, as he almost always needs to be, getting 46 points — the 11th time this year he’s reached 40 or more, and in the process becoming at 33 the second oldest (next to 38-year-old Michael Jordan) to take the season scoring title, which Curry did for a second time.

A lot or praise for Steph, not unexpectedly, from his coach — “He’s never been better,” said Kerr. And from his teammates — “He’s like the Picasso of our time,” said Juan Toscano-Anderson. “You can’t have a knock on him. He’s the best doing it right now.”

If the Warriors aren’t the best, as they were not long ago, they are fascinating and quite competent. Also, enjoyable. Sometimes it’s better to be the underdog and do the unexpected. Sure, everyone thinks about those championship Warriors. But Curry at least thinks about the non-champions, the “We believe” team that in 2007 beat the No. 1 seeded Mavericks in the first round.

When he pulled up his perspiration-soaked jersey at game’s end, as Baron Davis did back in ’07, Curry yelled “Shout out to BD.”

There will be plenty of shouting if somehow the Warriors can beat the Lakers, who after all, despite injuries to LeBron James and Anthony Davis, still are defending NBA champions.

Kerr seemed particularly elated with the Warriors’ progress the past few months. They’ve been blown out a few times, but now, following the loud and decisive on-court orders of Draymond Green, they are playing defense — and as we’ve been instructed by everyone from Kerr to Curry to Draymond his ownself, defense wins.

When the Warriors are rolling, it’s because they’re stopping the other team and picking up easy baskets.

Asked about the Warriors. Kerr pointed out that the entire organization, especially retiring president Rick Welts, deserves credit to hanging in during the pandemic. No Klay Thompson, no fans until only a few days ago because of restrictions, yet here’s the team preparing for the Lakers.

“The whole organization just has to endure this season,” said Kerr. “I’m really proud not only of the team but the whole organization. It’s been tough playing most of the year without fans, obviously taking huge financial losses. It’s been great the last games.”

Curry has been great virtually every game, with an understandable exception for someone who rarely gets a moment to rest — including playing 40 of the possible 48 minutes Sunday. 

“He’s a machine,” Kerr said of Curry. “What he means to the team, the way he conducts himself, that includes the way he takes care of his body, coming in to get treatment, getting on the floor and his skill work. I think he is just in love with the process.”

“When we were in China a few years ago, we met Roger Federer. And that’s what I see in Steph. He loves his life, loves his family, loves his routine. He’s well prepared for every season and every game.”

Steph’s 49 tops a great few days in Bay Area sports

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This is as good as it gets. There are fans in the stands. There is joy in the air. There is Steph Curry still on a tear.

We can say goodbye to retiring Alex Smith — remember, this is where he started, with the 49ers — and say thank you to Patrick Marleau, who started and will finish here, meaning in both cases the Bay Area.

Let’s acknowledge this era as one of special regional success.

Let’s acknowledge Marleau for setting the NHL record for games played, which he did as a member the Sharks at Vegas on Monday night.

And let’s again acknowledge Curry, remarkable, unstoppable, for what he continues to do — which Monday night was score 49 points, including 10 3-pointers, leading the Warriors to a 107-96 win over the 76ers in Philadelphia.

It was Steph’s 11th straight game scoring at least 30.

That, arguably, was the highlight of an unforgettable few days in Northern Cal sports.

Also Monday night, also at Philly, Brandon Belt, who could be labeled ageless (he was around for the World Series wins years ago), homered for the game’s only runs and pitcher Kevin Gausman (who could be considered dominant) led the Giants over the Phillies, 2-0.

The Athletics are not to be ignored, although their scheduled game at Oakland was postponed when the opponent, the Minnesota Twins, failed to pass a Covid test. The A’s, who started the season by losing a team record 6 straight, have now won eight in a row.

The Athletics finally are playing as expected. The Giants are playing better than forecast. The Warriors are playing the way a team with a great player sometimes does.

The Sharks? Let’s call them the exception that proves the rule, whatever the rule is. Besides, who wants to knock the team just as Marleau sets the mark for most NHL games played?

We haven’t beaten Covid-19. Maybe we never will. But we’re making progress, gaining momentum, getting back to the way we were, and the way our sports were — or because of Steph, advancing in leaps and bounds.

We’re smiling more, laughing a lot, able to think about colors of team uniforms rather than those of the Covid tiers; people at games other than catchers still need to wear masks, but we’ll adjust as needed.

So it’s not the best of times, not with restrictions on attendance still in effect. It’s been worse. Six months ago, it was worse.

The only access to our games was through TV or over the internet. Now, the U.S. Golf Association has announced that a limited amount of spectators will be allowed to attend the U.S. Women’s Open in June at San Francisco’s Olympic Club.

Now you can go to an A’s game and sit two rows in front of a guy who was the most accomplished bench jockey I’ve heard in years — OK, so he had couple of beers; still he knew all the classics, and his voice carried throughout the Coliseum. No obscenities either.

ESPN wants us to believe Dodgers-Padres suddenly is the biggest rivalry on the West Coast, but it’s 100 years behind Dodgers-Giants. Fans up here are testier and more accomplished. No beach balls either, only the basketballs Curry is utilizing in the most spectacular way.

Asked for yet another post-game comment about Curry, his star — the NBA’s star, if you will — Warriors coach Steve Kerr sighed, “I don’t know what else to say about what I think of Steph and his performance. I was in utter amazement. He is simply amazing.”

As have been the past few days in Bay Area sports.

Scoring by Steph brings reminder of Wilt

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He was a big man. Literally and significantly. At 7-foot-1, 270 pounds, Wilt Chamberlain would be hard to miss; also in various categories, on a running track, or in basketball scoring statistics, hard to catch. 

But Steph Curry has caught him, overtaken him. With an asterisk, maybe.

Steph scored 53 points on Monday night and broke the record for total points while playing for the Warriors — a mark that, with Curry seemingly years from retirement (he’s 33), is destined to grow and grow.

And what Steph did was not only remind us of his remarkable skill but also of Wilt’s, whose game was unique, both for his style and of an era.

Chamberlain, who started with the Warriors as a rookie in Philadelphia — he was (laughter) a territorial pick, but more about that later — through the team’s move to San Francisco before the 1962-63 season.

The team struggled. “Wilt scores 50, Warriors lose” was a frequent headline in one of the city’s three dailies at the time, the Chronicle, Examiner or Call-Bulletin. Then they did win, making the NBA finals in 1964 with the help of rookie Nate Thurmond.

But times got bad again. Wilt reportedly griped about the playoff gift from owner Franklin Mieuli, and Mieuli traded Chamberlain to the new team in Philly, the 76ers.

Back home again for Wilt. In front finally for Steph.

“To be anywhere near him in any record book or now be on top, it’s surreal and it’s wild,” Curry said after the game. “If you grow up in the game of basketball and you hear [Chamberlain’s] name, you know it’s something extremely special, no matter what it is.” The Warriors had been allowed to take him back in 1959 in something called the territorial draft, which allowed NBA teams to take local prospects, even though he had gone to the University of Kansas.

Wilt played 429 games for the Warriors and scored 17,783 points, averaging 41 points a game. Curry already has played 745 games and is averaging 25. This is not to knock Curry. This is to appreciate Chamberlain.

So many of Curry’s points have come on 3-point field goals. There was no 3-pointer in the league until 1979; Wilt retired in 1973.

Not that Chamberlain would have shot many threes.

In that 1962 Philly Warriors game in Hershey, Pa. (the NBA would go anywhere), the night he scored 100, Wilt was 28 of 32 from the line. And in 1972, when Chamberlain was in his mid-40s, on a bet with John Trapp, he hit five 3-point range shots in a row, all hook shots. All swishes.

Wilt, who died in 1999 at 63, was unique, an athlete. He ran the 100 at Philly’s Overbrook High. He high jumped 6-8 and broke 50 seconds in the quarter mile at Kansas. He became a top beach volleyball player. As a publicity gimmick, he agreed to box Muhammad Ali, but the fight never came off.

An autobiography, the one in which he claimed he slept with 20,000 women, was subtitled “Just like any other 7-foot black millionaire who lives next door.” Next door if you resided in the posh Bel-Air section of Los Angeles.

During an interview one time, the conversation, naturally, turned to the 100-point game. “I knew I had a lot of points,” Chamberlain told me, “but not how many. The fans starting chanting, “Hundred, hundred. I thought they were crazy.”

That record sorely will last forever — Kobe Bryant scored 81 in 2006 — unlike Wilt’s total with the Warriors. It did last half a century.

Now it belongs to Steph Curry, who understands what it all means. Swish!

Elgin Baylor lifted basketball from the floor to the skies

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They say his first name came from the brand of watch his mother wore when Elgin Baylor was born. Where his talent came from, only the gods would know.

If you never saw Elgin Baylor on a basketball court, well, he was LeBron James before LeBron James.

They say Baylor, who died Monday at 86, was the first superstar in Los Angeles. Maybe in basketball, although there were football players named Jon Arnett and Bob Waterfield who were very great.

Besides, in the fall of 1960, when Baylor arrived in L.A. along with the former Minneapolis Lakers, the team had a rookie named Jerry West, who not only became quite super but whose profile, dribbling, was adopted as the logo of the NBA.

Baylor changed basketball the way his successors, Michael Jordan and James, would later change it in their own way, with moves that few could make. He was 6-foot-5 and looked like a linebacker but played like a gazelle.

He lifted the game from the floor to the skies.

His style was unique. That term by the late Lakers announcer Chick Hearn, “yo-yo-ing the dribble,” that was a perfect description of the manner in which Baylor handled the basketball.

At times, as he thundered down the court, it almost seemed to be attached to a string.

He loved needling the media or giving nicknames. Elgin was the one who called West ”Zeke from Cabin Creek,” which if rhythmically pleasing was not accurate, since West was from another town in West Virginia.

The Soviet Union invaded Berlin in 1961, and Baylor went into the Army Reserves as a private first class. In the spring of ’62, the Lakers faced the Celtics in the finals. Baylor was allowed to play. 

Out of one uniform, the military’s, and into another, the Lakers’, Baylor scored a then-postseason record 62 points. The lead from the Associated Press started, “PFC Elgin Baylor, the Los Angeles Lakers’ one-man army…”

But the Lakers didn’t win the championship that year, or any year, until 1982, after Baylor had retired and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson were in the lineup.

In battle or in basketball, it’s not easy for one-man armies.

Baylor grew up in Washington, D.C. He crossed the country to stay and play briefly and successfully at Seattle U., and then College of Idaho. He wasn’t much of a student, but he was a hell of a basketball player.

The NBA wasn’t what it became. Television was minimal. So were salaries.

The Lakers, shifting west, played before crowds of about 5,000 some games at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Fans in Southern California were unfamiliar with the league. Jerry West lived in a modest home in Venice. Elgin Baylor was full of wisecracks but not himself.

I was with United Press International and would cover some Lakers practices where Baylor, looking for an easy mark, would bet me — a dime or a quarter, since sportswriters’ salaries were even more minimal than those of rookies — that he could make at least two of five shooting back over his head.

The game was well, a game, yet to become the towering international business of a half-century later. The Lakers finally captured the public’s imagination in April 1962 when they upended the St. Louis Hawks in the semis.

There was a digital crowd counter under the roof of the L.A. Sports Arena, so just as you knew how many Baylor and West had scored. you knew how many fans had seen them score.

Or for Elgin, seen him soar.

Baylor was voted into the NBA Hall of Fame. But not until a few years ago was a statue in his honor erected alongside Staples Center, now the Lakers’ home court.

A fantastic player. A fine human being. Hard to beat that combination. And it was hard to beat Elgin Baylor when he bet he could hit those half-court shots.

Yardstick game leaves Warriors with short end of stick

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There was a time in the opening minutes when, even though already behind, Warriors coach Steve Kerr — your typical positive thinker — believed if they picked up the pace, tightened up the defense, the Dubs would very much be in the game.

A short while later, he realized what most of us already had realized. On this Sunday night, on the road at the Staples Center, he was wrong. The only thing they were in was the wringer.

If this was to be a yardstick game for the Warriors, one that would show where at the halfway mark of this NBA season they stood, well, they were left out in the yard, holding the short end of the stick.

The final score might have been somewhat respectable, the Lakers beating the Warriors a mere 117-91. But for most of the game, the differential was around 30 points. And once — yikes — the Warriors trailed by 35.

Yes, the Warriors somehow escaped with a two-point victory when the teams played a few weeks ago. But that was fantasy — the Lakers, then at full strength and rolling, looking around and, whomp, having their pockets picked.

This was the real world, the Lakers, defending champions, after a mini-streak of four straight defeats, without their No. 2 man, Anthony Davis. Of course, LeBron James is No. 1, in the sport, much less on the Lakers.

ESPN hyped this game as LeBron vs. Steph Curry, perhaps understanding the game wouldn’t be close. But surely it never contemplated the mismatch that was broadcast nationally.

At the start of the third quarter, announcer Dave Pasch told us the Warriors are known for their ability to come back. Oh well.

“It got away from us early,” said Kerr, all too honestly. “I didn’t think we had much penetration. They sort of took us out of everything we wanted to do.”

The Warriors had a three-game winning streak going, their longest of this season — oh for those glory days when the they won 28 in a row — and we were going to find out just where the team stood in to the Lakers, the Nuggets and the Trail Blazers.

We found out, and when they play at Portland on Wednesday night we’re liable to find out much more.

Golden State mostly has relied on the remarkable Curry and his ability to toss up those 3-pointers. But the man is only a few days from his 33rd birthday. He wears down.

After several games around 30, Steph was limited to 16 points Sunday night. It happens.

“Nothing worked,” said Kerr.

The Warriors were overwhelmed on the boards, 60 rebounds to 35. The Dubs watched along with the national audience, only they were up close. If you don’t go to the basket, you’ll rarely get a missed shot.

To make matters worse, Draymond Green, who’d had a triple-double in the Warriors’ most recent win, incurred a sprained ankle in the second quarter Sunday and left the game. But as Kerr indicated, Green probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference in this one.

For those who care about such things, not only did the Lakers thump the Warriors but the Dodgers beat the Athletics and the Angels beat the Giants, giving southern California teams a sweep. But the baseball games were exhibitions, Cactus League. The Warriors’ loss was genuine.

“Draymond said it a little bit at halftime,” Curry observed. “We have to remember even when we’re playing well — we won three in a row — teams still want to beat us, and beat us bad.

“They still have a lot of memories from the last five, six years.”

What many of us will remember was what happened Sunday night against the Lakers. Oooh.

To Curry, ‘kind of like a blast from the past’

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By Art Spander

Steph Curry hit this one. Not with a jumper, with a comment, about a victory that that was as emotional as it was unlikely. “It was,” said Curry, “kind of like a blast from the past.”

From the distant past, from the Warriors’ championship seasons, five, six years ago, when Golden State was Golden and no deficit seemed impossible to overcome — which Monday night against the Lakers a deficit seemed to be but wasn’t.

You know the NBA. There’s almost no time to dwell on what happened. Virtually every night there’s another game, in these Covid-19 days of a compressed schedule, frequent back-to-backs, sometimes on consecutive days.

The next game for the Warriors is Wednesday night against the Spurs at Chase Center. Then Thursday, there’s another one, against the Knicks at Chase. No time to reflect on a game that may be the most significant for a team trying to find its identity.

The Warriors trailed the Lakers, the best team in basketball, by 19 points in the third quarter, then trailed them by 14 in fourth. And the Warriors somehow won, 115-113, when Curry, who had an OK night, made a big basket at the end and LeBron James, who seemed distracted, missed one.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr was both disappointed with that start and delighted with that finish.

“We had a couple of good days of practice,” said Kerr, doing a remote interview from Staples Center in L.A. “Then we came out and stunk it up. It was way off, at least for the first half. But I liked our fight. We came back in the second half and finished it off.

“Our guys were flying around. We have to scrap. I don’t think we scrapped enough. If we play defense and compete like that, we have a chance to beat anybody.”

Well, they did beat the Lakers, who are the current champions and who had lost only three times previously this season. The game was the third of a TBS triple-header, and as Kerr pointed out it gave the nation a chance to see Kelly Oubre, who replaced Andrew Wiggins as the catalyst of the second unit, the guys off the bench.

“Down the stretch, in order to make that comeback, it started with our second unit,” said Kerr. “We were able to come back and continue building.”

To the public the Warriors are Curry, and he is the star. But Curry and Kerr — and Draymond Green, who had his best overall game so far — will remind us the key is defense. When the Warriors make stops, they subsequently make runs, which was the case Monday.

Curry gets open, free of the double teams, the Warriors get baskets. Steph was only 1-for-6 in a stagnant opening period and was just 8-for-22 for the game, but did get 26 points.

“I didn’t shoot well,” said Curry, “but I was aggressive. So were the others. When we’re aggressive, we’re able to make plays.” 

Oubre had 23, and Eric Paschall 19.

Rookie James Wiseman, the No. 2 overall pick in the November draft, struggled, but Green told him, and us, that there will be days like that even for veterans and particularly for the new kids.

Green went to the basket a couple of times as well as going to teammates with passes, and was a major part of the equation.

“I think Draymond is still finding his way,” Kerr said of a man not long ago chosen Defensive Player of the Year. “He was off for nine months. His energy and intensity is what we need to win games.”

Once the defense was effective, Green and Curry worked together on offense, as we remember.

“This was a measuring stick for us,” said Curry. “We have to prove this is who we can be.” 

Which they did in the second half.

Warriors’ Wiggins plays D and outplays the critics

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By Art Spander

When a year ago Andrew Wiggins was traded by Minnesota to Golden State, a sports blogger named Brandon Anderson wrote, “The Timberwolves might have saved their franchise, while the Warriors made a catastrophic misstep that could put their dynasty on the brink.”

Basketball brinksmanship as practiced by the Dubs seems to be working. We’ll learn more after Tuesday night’s game against the Pacers at Chase Center.

The Warriors have won four of their last five, and in their most recent game Wiggins played like a man who could have been the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, which six years ago he was.

Even for his defense, which was unexpected — at least to those who thought they knew a man once labeled “Least Defensive Player” in the NBA from a plus-minus rating.

As an NBA observer tweeted last February when the Warriors acquired the frequently belittled Wiggins, ”Maybe he’ll smile with Steve Kerr.”

Kerr, the Warriors coach, certainly is smiling because of Wiggins. “We’re not asking him to change our franchise,” Kerr said of Wiggins. “We’re asking him to play defense, run the floor and get buckets. He’s capable of doing all that.”

As verified on Sunday night, the night Steph Curry was only 2 for 16, with just 11 points. Wiggins scored 17 and guarded Toronto’s Pascal Siakam down the stretch of the 106-105 victory.

“He just used his length, athleticism and anticipation,” said Kerr. “We now have someone we can put on the opposing team’s best player, whether it’s Pascal Siakam, LeBron James, Kawhi (Leonard) or Paul George.”

Klay Thompson had that responsibility, but of course he’s missing the season with the torn Achilles tendon.

The 6-foot-8 Wiggins always was expected to do more than he did, at least by his critics.

He grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, hockey country, and two years into high school moved to a prep school in West Virginia. A Feb. 7, 2013, article in Sports Illustrated knocked Canadian basketball and Wiggins’ work ethic. In his next game, he scored 57 points.

After a year at Kansas, Wiggins was taken first in the 2014 draft by Cleveland but, quickly enough in a swap that involved the Cavs, T-Wolves and 76ers, went to Minnesota. As part of the transaction, the Cavs got Kevin Love.

What Wiggins would get was complaints. Sure, he had impressive games, but not enough of them, even though he would be voted Rookie of the Year. The era belonged to the Warriors and Cavaliers, and T-Wolves fans were disenchanted.

As were some of the media.

During a Bulls-T-Wolves game two years ago, Chicago play-by-play announcer Neil Funk piled on Wiggins.

“We’ve seen Minnesota twice this season, and Wiggins has not been engaged in either game.” said Funk.

“He just kind of floats around out there — he does nothing ... Zach (LaVine) is just much more active than a Wiggins type, night in and night out … and Wiggins just has that, and I’m sure he wants to compete, we know he’s a talent, there’s no arguing that, but his body language is as if ‘I don’t care, I’m just out here.'”

Then he was out of there. One basketball observer couldn’t decide whether the Warriors were more thrilled getting Wiggins or getting rid of D'Angelo Russell.

The answer has arrived. Maybe Wiggins simply needed a team like the Warriors. Maybe he became more determined. Sometimes what’s needed is a change of scenery. Sometimes a change in motivation.

“I’m playing with the Defensive Player of the Year, Draymond,” Wiggins said of his new approach. “He’s out there, he’s vocal, he helps out a lot on defense giving us advice, just showing us certain things. We’ve got the rook down there, James (Wiseman) trying to clean stuff up. It’s been good.”

For the Warriors, and for Andrew Wiggins. At least so far.

Draymond is the one who makes that difference

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By Art Spander

The best defensive player in the world. Steve Kerr said that about Draymond Green. Of course it’s an exaggeration, but this is an era of exaggeration, and if anybody is going tell us that it would be Kerr, who is Green’s coach with the Warriors.

And if anybody deserves that compliment, that exaggeration, it’s Green.

“There’s no sport where one player makes that much of a difference.” So said Chris Mullin, the Hall of Famer who once made a difference for the Warriors in the 1980s and now does their pre- and post-game TV.

That comment is not an exaggeration. It’s the truth.

In football, a player is 1/11th of the lineup; well, 1/22nd, considering offense and defense are separate units; in baseball, one-ninth; in basketball, one-fifth. But numbers alone are inadequate.

Even those of the win streak that the Warriors carry into Wednesday night against the Clippers at Chase Center. Two games.

A trifle compared to the 24 in a row that opened the 2015-16 season. Yet after an 0-2 start to the schedule, a bit of reassurance.

The Warriors have spent time practicing. James Wiseman, the No. 2 overall pick in the November NBA draft, has spent time improving. Steph Curry has spent time making most of his shots. Green has spent time reminding everyone how much he was missed when absent because of a sore foot.

“He’s kind of our point forward in many ways,” said Kerr, “and the leader of the team.”

That last part is no exaggeration.

Curry is the headliner, the one who gets the points — 62 two games ago — and, with two MVP awards, the most attention. Think of the Dubs, and you cannot think of anyone but Steph. 

Wiseman is the comer, and his progress, with only three college games and then months of relative inactivity, has been tantalizing. When this kid learns the game, others will learn what he’s about to become: one of the greats.

Andrew Wiggins is the mystery, the first man taken in the 2014 draft but who has been twice traded and frequently criticized for being more unpredictable than reliable. Ah, but maybe this is his spot and his year.

Damion Lee, Eric Paschal, Kelly Oubre, Kent Bazemore and Kevon Looney are among the pieces on the roster.

Green is the feisty, experienced and wise guy who has to make certain those many pieces fit properly.

“He impacts the game so dramatically on defense,” Kerr said of Green’s play after the Warriors defeated the Sacramento Kings, 137-106, Monday night. “And then on offense he gets us organized.” 

In those recent glory days when Kevin Durant was around, and Klay Thompson was healthy and Andre Iguodala was anywhere he needed to be, Draymond got what was coming to him — NBA Defensive Player of the Year in ’17 — and made sure teammates got the ball.

There were incidents, the scuffle with LeBron James, then of Cleveland, and suspension in the 2016 finals; the argument with teammate Durant in November 2018. Nothing that would keep Draymond from his role.

Those days, five straight finals, three titles, are gone. So, through injuries (Thompson) or personnel movement, are most of the men from those teams, other than Green, who will be 31 in March, and Curry, who will be 33 also in March.

A feeling of familiarity. A need for adaptation.

“They know each other so well,” Kerr said of Green and Curry. “So their pick-and-roll game is beautiful to watch with their hand-backs. And Draymond understands how to get (Curry) open. Our defense gets a lot better with Draymond on the floor. Steph gets more transition opportunities as well.”

Then there are the other Warriors who leave Green uncertain.

“There are times out there,” Green confessed, “where I’m out there on the floor and I don’t know where to go because we’re all figuring each other out. So it’s important we get that movement, and even as important that I’m directing that movement and helping guys get that understanding.”

The best defensive player in the world seems as capable with the ball as without it.

The crazy NBA: Curry frustrated; Clippers lose by 51

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By Art Spander

The Warriors, who aren’t supposed to be very good, win a game by a point. The same night the Clippers, who are supposed to be very good, lose one by 51 points. And you think you understand the NBA?

The league is a compressed lunacy of late-game baskets, late-night charter flights and — other than LeBron James’ greatness — unpredictability.

I mean, whoever thought we’d read an AP story with a paragraph beginning, “The Clippers opened the third quarter on a 10-0 run to get within 40"?

Or that Steph Curry would be having trouble finding his shot?

Curry and the Warriors are back at it again Tuesday night, playing the Pistons in Detroit, their fourth straight road game to begin a season that already is a blend of shock (those routs by the Nets and the Bucks) and elation (that last-second in at Chicago on the 3-pointer by Damion Lee).

Asked if after that first victory there was a sense of relief, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, “Relief for sure, but more a sense that finally we can figure this thing out a bit."

What most of us figured out quickly enough is that it will take time for even so accomplished a shooter — he made 105 straight 3-pointers the other day in practice — to work smoothly with teammates other than the ones from the glory years.

“He’s frustrated,” Kerr said of Curry, “but that’s kind of natural. For Steph, this is a brand new team.”

A team without Kevin Durant or Klay Thompson or, until his sore foot heals, Draymond Green; a team with Kelly Oubre, Juan Toscano-Anderson, at times rookie James Wiseman and Damion Lee. A team as much seeking to make progress as to score points.

It’s one thing to know when to pull up for a jumper. It’s another to know who will be to your right if you decide to pass.

Kerr was an earlier version of Steph Curry as a player, if not quite as skilled, a gunner who could hit 3-pointers. He started with the Bulls, as a teammate of Michael Jordan, went to the Spurs and finished with the Blazers.

“Every time I went to a new team in my career,” said Kerr, “it was difficult to find comfort with my shots in the early going. And I think Steph is really going through the same thing because he’s not as comfortable where his shots are coming from because of different personnel.”

No question Thompson and Durant made it easier for Curry and everyone else on the Warriors. Sports are about adapting, or as Curry reminded, about learning and improving.

Not that Curry has far to go. He scored 36 in the 129-128 win at Chicago (and was supposed to take the last shot, but smartly the ball went to Lee), and in the three games Curry is averaging 25.

For Curry and the Warriors, who didn’t qualify for the playoffs, it was six months without basketball, then a week of practice and two exhibition games.

“We’ve never gone through this before as professionals, or at any level,” said Curry. “But no excuses. The shots I take I think I’m going to make. I seldom take one I don’t; maybe one or two bad shots in a game.”

Curry said that, for now, it’s energy that’s important, even more than accuracy. Same thing for Oubre, who’s been having a terrible time of it.

“The win was important,” Curry agreed. “1-2 is better than 0-3. A win in Detroit would make us .500 for the trip, which would be OK. The last thing you can do as a shooter is stop shooting, no matter how frustrating it is.”

And maybe find satisfaction that you didn’t lose a game by 51 points like the Clippers.

Steph Curry is the face of Bay Area sports

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By Art Spander

"Basketball is back.” Steph Curry made that comment a short while after he made us understand he too is back, throwing in those jump shots, tossing in those observations.

There will be no winter of discontent.

Curry and the Warriors head back to Sacramento, up Interstate 80, for another preseason game tonight against the Kings.

“Another opportunity to get better,” is how Curry describes it. “Trying to find my rhythm as fast as possible.”

Not that the search seems particularly difficult.

On Tuesday night, same teams, same place, Steph was rhythmical and accurate. He played 28 minutes. He scored 29 points. He had 4 assists. He had 3 steals,

He had what we know as a Steph Curry game.

Curry not only is the focus of the Warriors' offense, he’s the face of sports in the Bay Area.

He’s the celebrity who plays golf with Phil Mickelson and Peyton Manning. He’s the spokesman who congratulates Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer for becoming the winningest women’s basketball coach. He’s the two-time most valuable player.

There was a broken hand for much of the pandemic-shortened schedule last season. There were ankle problems early in his career. But mostly there has been satisfaction, for Curry, for the Warriors organization as it won championships and for the fans whose patience and loyalty were rewarded with a half-decade of success.

This is the 12th season for Curry, who off court, with his family and outside interests, doesn’t miss a thing and on court almost never misses a free throw.   

He’s comfortable in his skin and in his roles as husband, father and hero, passing out compliments as smoothly as he passes the ball.

Asked the problem with a defense, which was criticized by head coach Steve Kerr after the Tuesday loss, Curry emphasized it was without Draymond Green, out after a positive Covid-19 test.

”He’s the quarterback, the defensive coordinator,” Curry said of Green. “He’s everything. We all have to be in sync. He makes us an amazing defense.”

Curry is no less appreciative of Steve Kerr, who became Warriors coach before the 2014-15 season, when the start of the domination — three championships, five consecutive NBA finals — began.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” affirmed Curry. “(Kerr) hasn’t changed at all, even with the physical stuff, being in and out of his seat.”

Kerr was so in pain from a bad back that at times, even during the playoffs, he was unable to sit courtside, and the coaching was done by Mike Brown, still the Warriors' primary assistant.

“We have great communication,” said Curry, talking about Kerr and himself. “He’s meant a lot to my success. He’s very consistent. So for me as a point guard, I’m an extension of him on the court. There’s transparency and communication, one through 15.”

Meaning each man on the roster.

This year figures to be different. Klay Thompson will be out. A 7-foot rookie center, James Wiseman, the No. 2 pick in the draft, in time may be in.

Someone wondered what the biggest thing Curry had learned in his seasons in the league and on the Warriors. Not surprisingly, the answer reminded us what we had learned about Curry, that he is eternally aware.

“I don’t think I learned this,” he said, “but I have an appreciation of what we get to do every single day. We haven’t lost that excitement.

“No matter how many championships we’ve won, or how many we lost., we keep the right perspective. The NBA is a blessing, and the ability to be in our world is an amazing experience. We all have lives off the court, and Steve appreciates the values we bring in our own stories.”

Yes, basketball is back, and so is Steph Curry. How fortunate for us all.

Some draft day: Warriors get Wiseman, lose Klay

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By Art Spander

Now the wait begins for the Warriors. To see how quickly Klay Thompson recovers from yet another injury.

To see if James Wiseman becomes the dominant player he’s supposed to be.

To see when and if, in this Covid-cursed time, they’ll be allowed to have crowds for home games at Chase Center.

A Wednesday that was supposed to be advantageous, Golden State able to utilize the second pick in the ’20 NBA draft — with which Wiseman was selected — became tumultuous.

Thompson, preparing for a comeback after the terrible injury that ripped his left knee and the Warriors' chances in the 2019 playoff finals, hurt his lower right leg during a workout in southern California, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the San Francisco Department of Health rejected the team’s plans to allow 18,000-seat Chase to be half-filled for games, setting a maximum of 4,500 because of Covid restrictions.

All this news and not a single jump shot since March. But certainly plenty of speculation, not unusual for any draft day, much less one as full of disabiltity — Klay’s injury — and possibility as this one.

ESPN had been touting the draft as the Warriors’ opportunity to rebuild a dynasty, Golden State having reached the finals five straight times, 2015-2019, and having won three of those.

If that record doesn’t quite fulfill the requirement of a dynasty, particularly compared to the Celtics of the 1960s and Lakers of the 1980s and 2000s, it was the best in basketball for a while, a long while.

You add a high pick, which turned out to be the 7-foot-1 Wiseman, put Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Thompson on the court with him and, well, maybe they wouldn’t win it all, but they’d at least remind us of what used to be.

Then we were reminded, but the wrong way, with Thompson’s injury, the severity of which remains in question until additional tests are made.

But as they say, when one of your stars returns after missing a season because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament and then injures his other leg and hobbles off the court, it’s not going to be good news.

The early report is Klay has “a significant Achilles injury.” If so, the dynasty rebuilld will be stopped before it has started. Kevin Durant is proof that Achilles injuries take months to overcome.

The basketball fates smiled on the Warriors. Now they sneer. Curry broke his left hand several games into last season, and by the time he returned the team was headed for the draft lottery.

They did have a bit of good fortune, earning the No. 2 overall pick, but this second injury to Klay, who’s now 30, ruins everything.

As an undergrad at Memphis last year, his only year, Wiseman was burdened with his own problems.

In his first game as a freshman, he had 28 points and 11 rebounds. But two more games, and whop, Wiseman was suspended by the NCAA for accepting improper benefits, including $11,500 in moving expenses from Memphis coach Penny Hardaway.

Instead of trying to regain his eligibility, Wiseman, who was a one-and-done guy anyway, in effect said "the heck with it" and waited to enter the NBA draft. If he doesn’t have the last laugh, he’ll have plenty of money. And the Warriors will have a potential all-star at center.

“Going through adversity made me stronger,” Wiseman said after he was taken, following the selection of Georgia’s Anthony Edwards — the guard some observers say the Warriors coveted — and before LaMelo Ball, the guard who played around the world.

With Wiseman, the Warriors have the inside game they will need without Thompson joining Curry for the outside game.

Without Klay, the Warriors have a huge question.

Not the trade-off that anyone could wish.

Basketball stopped — to make us aware the shooting must stop

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

The NBA stopped. But only to make us aware that the killing must stop. If we weren’t aware already.

Black men keep getting shot — this time in Kenosha, Wis. — and other black men again did what they could to peacefully show their outrage and fear.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2020 The Maven

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.