Warriors ‘missing collective grit’

That was a poignant observation from Steve Kerr. For Warrior fans, it also was a painful one.

He used different phrases, but basically Kerr told us — reminded us — that sporting dynasties do not last forever. Even one as exciting and gloriously enjoyable as that of the Golden State Warriors.

Earlier Wednesday, Kerr was interviewed by Ramona Shelburne on ESPN, which along with NBC Bay Area a few hours later would televise the Warriors’ game against the Suns in Phoenix. And the subject was success, of course, but in a twist the inevitability of that success comes to an end.

Players change, results change.

The Warriors, not knowing what their coach would forecast, went out and remained winless on the road, dropping their eighth straight game, this one to the Suns, 130-119. Steph Curry would score 50 points for the Warriors, but basketball is not a one-man game.

As the past few seasons, the Warriors, with their winning streaks and four NBA championships, made quite clear. As Kerr, a member of the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls — certainly a dynasty in the 1980s — was clear about what lay ahead: change.

“History would suggest teams have runs,” said Kerr. The Warriors most likely have two or three years remaining in a run, that with Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green began with the magical season of 2015. “Maybe five years,” he conceded.

But players get old — we all do — and despite wise management, fortunate trades and perceptive drafting, the new pieces don’t fit together like the previous ones. That’s why championships are so rare. And so treasured.

During the game, a television sideline reporter, noting Curry’s outburst — he was well on his way to an 11th game of 50 points or more — mentioned to Kerr the Warriors needed offense from others besides Steph. “We don’t need offense,” said the coach, “we need defense.”

It was only one game, but truth tell it was more than one game. It was a verification of what the Warriors once had and what so far in this struggle of a season they lack, the ability to stop the other team. The Suns shot right around 50 percent and hit 3-pointer after 3-pointer.

“We have to get everybody on board,” said Kerr. “But with the new kids learning the system and each other, will they? It takes talent to build a winner. It takes time.

“We had a lot of joy beating people over the years. The other teams don’t forget. That feeling of joy is lacking now. We’re missing collective grit.” 

Kendrick Perkins, a longtime NBA player and now an ESPN analyst, said that Draymond Green punching teammate Jordan Poole in practice just before the season began is having an effect.

“People say it’s over,” Perkins remarked about the incident, “but those things linger.”

For the Warriors, basketball may become less a game than it is a grind.

Remembering Joe Roberts and a Warriors win

OAKLAND — They came to say goodbye to Joe Roberts, to tell several stories, share a few laughs and, for some at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, shed a few tears.

Joe was 86, defeated after a long struggle against cancer. It was one of the rare fights he ever lost in a career that from start to finish was loaded with success.

Roberts is best remembered as the assistant coach who took control of the Warriors in the 1975 NBA finals, helping win a game and a championship.

But he was so much more, a member of that 1960 NCAA champion Ohio State team, with Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, Larry Siegfried and, yes, Bobby Knight; the overall 21st pick (by the Syracuse Nats) in the 1960 NBA draft; and a coach and teacher in the Oakland schools.

But for those of a certain age, Roberts will be the man who couldn’t be intimidated by a situation or a sneaky tactic by a member of an opposing team, in this case Mike Riordan of the Bullets (now the Wizards).

The Bullets were huge favorites in the series. One paper — was it the Baltimore Sun? — described the Warriors as the worst team ever to reach the finals. But the Warriors (the nickname Dubs was years in the future) won the first three games. 

When they got in front in Game 4, Riordan pummeled Warriors star Rick Barry, who pummeled back. Before Barry could be ejected, Warriors coach Al Attles charged out and charged in — and was thrown out, not Barry.

For a few moments, the Warriors were in, shall we call it, a semi-chaotic state, a ship without a captain, as it were. Then Roberts stood up and ordered everybody to sit down and stop talking. There could be only one boss, and it was going be Mr. Roberts.

There could be only one NBA champion, and it was the Warriors in a sweep. 

Attles was at the celebration of Joe Roberts’ life, as were Cliff Ray, George Johnson and Charles (Hopper) Dudley, who is working on a video to honor those ’75 champions. So were top players on subsequent Warriors clubs, including Purvis Short, the guy with the rainbow jump shot.

The NBA adopted the 3-point shot in 1979, just before the start of Short’s decade-long career, but the emphasis in the NBA in that era was to shove and push and get the ball closer to the basket.

Asked if he still had his jumper, which seemed to soar out of sight, Short, now 65, said, “I could make the shot. I don’t know if I could get open.”

Short lives in Houston, Cliff Ray in Florida and Dudley in the Seattle area. Their reunions are infrequent but also important.

The Warriors these days are the class and pride of the NBA. But we shouldn’t forget the team that won the title because Joe Roberts showed us — and them — how to be a leader.

Thanks, Joe. We’ll miss you.

For Irving, no apology but a suspension

Yes, that was a rabbi on ESPN’s NBA Today. You might say he was acting as a point guard, trying to keep things under control. Not on court, in society.

Trying to do what ESPN tells us sport often does: brings together people from different places, with different viewpoints. Enables us to share the joy.

Except now, we’re sharing disappointment. Not over the results of a particular game. We get over losses in time. This is different. This is about an observation from basketball star Kyrie Irving that is as worrisome as it is unacceptable.

Irving went on the internet and endorsed a propaganda film from a book by the same name, “Hebrews to Negroes,” loaded with antisemitic assertions.

Irving insists he doesn’t dislike the Jews or any religious group, but he refused to apologize for the internet post — which, of course, was taken down Wednesday by his team, the Brooklyn Nets, who are based in one of the country’s predominantly Jewish areas.

“I don’t hate anyone,” Irving said.

In suspending Irving, the Nets — already a dysfunctional mess — called him “unfit to be associated with the team.”

What Mike Wilbon from ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption called Irving was dangerous.

Last season, because he refused to be vaccinated against Covid, Irving was not cleared to play in New York, the Nets’ home state, or California. 

Irving supposedly said the Holocaust never took place, but he denies the assertion, and Thursday before he was suspended, offered a confusing open-ended remark.

“Some of the criticism of the Jewish faith and the community,” said Irving, “for sure, some of the points made there, that were unfortunate.”

Everything with which Irving has been in involved of late seems unfortunate.

Asked if he believes or agrees with the false idea that the Holocaust never happened, Irving answered “those falsehoods are unfortunate.”

So is this entire situation. Fans at a Nets game Monday night wore T-shirts with the slogan, “Fight Antisemitism.”

In West Los Angeles, Eraz Sherman, rabbi at Temple Sinai,

cringed and readied for his own fight. Many NBA players work out in the temple’s gym not too far from the UCLA campus.

“It makes me scared,” he told NBA Today of the film and the Irving internet posting. “One of the kids who belongs to the synagogue loves wearing his Kyrie Irving shoes. Now he wants to throw them away.”

Someone wondered what the rabbi might tell Irving, given the chance in a conversation,

“I would point out this is a multi-faith world, not inter-faith,” said Sherman. “We have to stay together, not tearing everything apart.”

Irving, apparently believing money is a substitute for an apology, will donate $500,000 to promote antisemitism.

“l didn’t want to cause any harm,” Irving said to reporters.

But he caused great harm, for himself and others involved in this awful event.

Draymond: Off the hook, on the radar

So, Draymond Green, where have you been? Oh, never mind. It’s all on that tape, which is as big a story as your brief absence. You know how when people leave work they call it punching out? Sorry, which is what you said you are about your recent contretemps.

Some people thought you should have been suspended, but fortunately for you they don’t coach or work as executives for the Warriors. Besides, if you didn’t already know, nobody is supposed to hit anyone, much less a teammate.

Nobody wonders if you’ll play hard. That’s in your DNA. You’d never have made it in the NBA without your passion and intensity.

What has some worried is a few players, one being Jordan Poole, whom you punched in practice, will not feel comfortable playing the season with you. But teammates have battled physically and still won titles. Think of those Oakland A’s.

Then again, that was in the 1970s, before cell phones, items that would provide a literal picture of an event. And before a news service (?) like TMZ, which has sources seemingly everywhere. Somebody at the Warriors facility took that video. On ESPN, Tony Kornheiser called it sabotage.

What Warriors coach Steve Kerr called the punch and subsequent reaction was “the greatest crisis” of his coaching career.

When during that career you won four championships in a span of several years, there haven’t been many crises, great or small.

For certain, Draymond and the Dubs accomplished the near impossible, knocking the 49ers out of the top spot of the TV sports reports, a difficult task indeed.

Kerr, who once was slugged by Michael Jordan when they were teammates on the Chicago Bulls, went about his well-scrutinized business with the determination and irritation of an individual who’s been there and had that done to him.

Basketball is the sport of least privacy. Baseball has dugouts in which to hide; football has helmets to be worn. Basketball is a T-shirt and shorts. Insults — trash talk — are constant. You handle it, or you try another activity.

What the Warriors tried, however, was honesty.

No denials, no attempts at cover-ups. Let’s get this fixed and, as Kerr said, move forward.

Yet if what’s in the news is any indication, that journey will not be an easy one.

The media (blush) isn’t going to let this go quickly. Whatever the Warriors do to keep the team strong on the court, there will be a reference to Draymond Green and his punch.

Either they’ll have overcome that mammoth crisis or they’ll have fallen victim to it.

Draymond insisted when he made his apology several days ago that the punch and still unknown problem between him and Poole was embarrassing.

Both players are lucky it wasn’t injurious, one or both ending with a broken bone, Now apparently all we’ll get is hurt pride.

The punch and the TMZ video jolted the Warriors, a franchise where everything invariably runs so smoothly — or so it seems — like, well, a punch to the jaw. They had to do the right thing as much as they had to do what would keep them winners.

“It’s been been an exhaustive process,” Kerr said of the discussion on how to to proceed. “Everything was on the table.”

Now Green effectively may be off the hook, although definitely he’ll be on everyone’s radar.

Since days at USF, Bill Russell was his own man

When I arrived in the Bay Area in the mid-1960s, it was notably provincial. Joe DiMaggio remained the region’s favorite ballplayer over Willie Mays, which was a mistake.

Not that Joe wasn’t great. It’s just because Willie was greater but unappreciated by the newer generation.

And Bill Russell, who had grown up in Oakland and led the University of San Francisco to championships, seemed to be the only basketball player who mattered.

That, we learned in retrospect, was not a mistake.

Russell, who died Sunday at 88, was a man apart, on the court and off. He changed the sport. In time, he also would change social viewpoints.

Choices remain subjective. How we judge remains no less a factor than who we judge. Michael Jordan invariably gets the votes as the best in history. There was nothing he couldn’t do.

Which brings us to Russell. All he could do was win. Everywhere and anywhere.

The boy who in the late 1940s moved with his family from Louisiana was gangly and unskilled. But tall enough, so he earned a place, or at least a temporary one, on the McClymonds High basketball squad.

Maybe William Felton Russell couldn’t shoot, but he would keep others from scoring, especially in time at USF, where he teamed with a kid from San Francisco’s Commerce High, K.C. Jones.

The Dons would win back-to-back NCAA championships (1955 and ’56) and a record 60 straight games. At UCLA, a young coach named John Wooden kept getting asked why he couldn’t get past USF in the regionals. The brief answer: Because of Bill Russell.

Genius is a misused word in sports. But it is appropriate in the case of Arnold (Red) Auerbach, who as coach and GM of the Celtics understood what Russell could provide and maneuvered to get him in the ’56 draft.

Former Senator Bill Bradley, who faced Russell with the Knicks in the 1960s, viewed him as “the smartest player ever to play the game and the epitome of a team leader.”

“At his core, Russell knew that he was different from other players — that he was an innovator and that his very identity depended on dominating the game,” Bradley wrote in reviewing Russell’s remembrances of Auerbach in “Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend” (2009) for The New York Times.

Until near the end, Russell was involved in a series of confrontations. In 2007, Russell returned to the USF campus. According to Jerry Crowe of the Los Angeles Times, Russell “stormed off after being told he would  have to pay his own way because his scholarship had expired.

“Dominating the game, indeed. Whatever was the source of Russell’s frustration in any phase of his life is part of what pushed him to excel, if not satisfy himself.”

Russell’s allegiance was to his teammates, not to the city of Boston or to the fans. He refused to sign autographs for fans or even as keepsakes for his teammates. When the Celtics retired his No. 6 in March 1972, the event, at his insistence, was a private ceremony in Boston Garden. He ignored his election to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame — situated squarely in Celtics country, in Springfield, Mass. — and refused to attend the induction.

“In each case, my intention was to separate myself from the star’s idea about fans, and fans’ ideas about stars,” Russell said in “Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man”, written with Taylor Branch and published in 1979. “I have very little faith in cheers, what they mean and how long they will last, compared with the faith I have in my own love for the game.”

The faith placed in Bill Russell from his days at McClymonds and USF was well deserved.

Does Steph already rank with Willie and Joe?

Go ahead and toss up the names, the way Steph Curry might a long jumper: the Bay Area’s most compelling athletes.

The list is arbitrary, of course, people who touch the headlines but no less importantly touch the heart.

You start with Willie Mays, naturally, one of a kind, and if you didn’t have the great fortune to see him play in person, surely you’ve caught the films, of him catching a fly ball or hitting a home run.

After that? Surely Joe Montana, who starting with one poignant pass play helped turn a franchise of mediocrity into one of destiny.

No, the selections are as much dependent on priority as history: Reggie Jackson, Willie McCovey, Catfish Hunter, Jerry Rice, Rick Barry, Patrick Marleau — the choice is yours. Except for the guy who had that game of games on Friday night, the guy who virtually alone kept the Warriors alive for yet another championship, Curry.

That was some achievement, that stunning 107-97 Warriors win over the Celtics and an angry, aggressive, foul-mouthed crowd in Boston. The Warriors hit the boards. The Warriors played defense. The Warriors hit the jackpot.

There is a reluctance to make this personal, but I have been covering their games since the 1960s, for the Chronicle, the Examiner, the Oakland Tribune; covered 17- and 22-win seasons; covered their championships in ’75 and in ’15. ’17 and ’18. But I can’t remember a more impressive and emotional victory as the one on Friday.

So many factors, so many people. Indeed, basketball is a team game — hit the open man — but in no other team sport is the individual as important. He — or she — can shoot, dribble, rebound, pass and play defense. It’s what he does with the ball and what he does when the other team has the ball.

And what he does for his teammates.

Curry has had bigger scoring nights than the one Friday when he finished with 43 — there was a 50-pointer earlier this season — but perhaps not one as significant.

He was on a bad foot. He was on a franchise trailing two games to one. But Curry got on a tear. Once more.

“The heart on that man is incredible,” said teammate Klay Thompson. “You know, the things he does we kind of take for granted from time to time, but to go out there and put us on his back, I mean, we’ve got to help him out on Monday. Wow.”

Yes, wow. Monday, Game 5 of the best-of-seven NBA finals will be at Chase Center, where the fans who could get no closer than a TV screen — at a watch party or a tavern or their own home — will be able to express their joy and appreciation.

What is sport but another form of entertainment, if dictated by results and a scoreboard? The Warriors have captured the imagination of the region, mainly because of their success but also for their style.

Curry always has been likable. At 6-foot-3, a relatively small man in a supposed big man’s game, he can swish 25-foot baskets with disarming ease, which only contributes to his appeal.

This has been pointed out through the years, about stars such as Montana and Jim Plunkett and Buster Posey.

Curry is unique. He’s been called the best shooter ever. He’s a treasure. And not least, he comes across as a pleasant, well-meaning person. In a crazy world, Steph seems a symbol of sanity.

And he’s not bad with 3-point shots either.

Warriors up against Celtics, profanities

Steph Curry was trying to persuade us, if not himself. The Warriors, he said with a quiet affirmation, have been here before.

Not really. They haven’t been down 2-1 in an NBA final with the next game — in this case, Friday night — at TD Garden in Boston, where banners hang and obscenities fly.

They haven’t faced a lineup as muscular and physical as that of the Celtics, who don’t take the air out of the basketball but with their height and weight have been able to take the Warriors out of their game.

Michael Wilbon, on “Pardon the Interruption” Thursday, said don’t put too much into one result. The playoffs historically are inconsistent, coaches installing changes virtually as soon as they watch the videos.

But what are the Warriors to do about Jason Tatum? Or Jaylen Brown? Or Marcus Smart, who roughed them up Wednesday night, transforming what had been athletic ballet for the Dubs, soaring and scoring, into a pulling match?

What the Warriors are to do with their own tough guy, Draymond Green — who, alas wasn’t tough at all, calling himself “soft” — is wait.

“Everybody has bad games,” said Warriors guard Klay Thompson, who scoring 25 points (second to Curry’s 31) had a very good one.

“Draymond is a reason we’re here. We wouldn’t be the Warriors without Draymond. He brought us to heights we’d never seen before.”

Klay means to the finals a sixth time in eight years and to a championship three times in five years.

Thompson himself is a huge part of the equation. The question is how can the Warriors find their offensive magic against the defense-minded Celtics?

There is no question the Boston fans use language that, to borrow a line, would make a sailor blush. “All those F-bombs,” said Thompson.

But of course. You want to know about the people who go to sporting events in Boston, check into some of the things they yelled at Ted Williams at Fenway Park. Oh my.

The playoff games in Boston don’t start until a few minutes after 9 p.m. eastern time. What are you going to do until then, walk the Freedom Trail? It’s not that everyone is a lush, but there’s a reason the Patriots didn’t play Monday Night Football games at old Schaefer Stadium.

The game the Warriors play Friday night will include Curry, Steph promised on Thursday. “It would be tough without him,” agreed Thompson. Late in Game 3, Boston’s 6-foot-9, 240-pound Al Horford landed on Curry’s frequently injured ankle.

But he was able to walk gingerly off the floor and return to the game. Been there, done that, in effect was what Curry, iced and taped, said on Thursday.

“Plenty of times before,” reminded Curry. “It wasn’t as bad as It seemed when it first happened.”

Steph pointed out the Warriors couldn’t get their points mainly because Boston got too many. So much of the Warriors offense is predicated on how they play — or in Game 3, didn’t play — defense.

At their best, they’re grabbing rebounds and sweeping down court. For that to occur once more, even against the rugged Celtics, is not an impossibility. Even in Boston.

“We’ve been in hostile environments before,” said Curry. “We can’t get too emotional. We’ve clawed our way back, did it the last game.”

Indeed, from an 18-point deficit in the first half, the Warriors worked themselves into a lead in the third quarter.

Encouraging. Enervating. Especially against the Celtics, who rebound so aggressively and keep trying to knock you down while, in NBA lingo, you keep trying to knock down the shots.

“I think it’s just playing better, playing harder, playing as a unit,” Thompson said about the key. “I don’t think we need to make incredible adjustments. I just think we need to come out with that force, that Warriors brand of ball that has been so successful this past decade.”

If he doesn’t think so, why should anyone else?

Draymond knew what the Warriors needed

That kid peeking over the interview table Saturday night after the Warriors win? That was the son of Draymond Green. Maybe not quite ready to hold a basketball, but he did bring a few more smiles to a post-game situation already filled with joy.

And more than a few memories.

It seems like only yesterday the offspring of another Warriors player entered the picture. Literally wriggling across the TV screen, Riley Curry kept escaping her father’s arms as he spoke to the media.

Yes, tempus sure does fugit. It was 2015, the NBA finals when the Warriors beat the Cavaliers. Riley is 9 now.

Draymond Green Jr. or “DJ,’ is 5. His dad, stitched up a bit, tough as ever, may have been the lynchpin in the 110-98 win over Memphis that gave the Warriors the Western Conference championship, four games to two, and elevated them into the next round against either Phoenix or Dallas.

It wasn’t just what Green did during the game, his defensive work and passing, as much as what he said before the game, advising interim coach Mike Brown to start Kevon Looney at center.

The Warriors had been shoved around in Game 5, falling behind by 55 points. They needed defense. They needed rebounding. Looney gave them both. He had 22 boards. Remarkable.

“They made it clear they were going to beat us up,” said Klay Thompson, who scored 30 points, one more than Curry. Andrew Wiggins played 41 minutes, getting 18 points and 11 rebounds. Yet the presence and performance of the 6-foot-9 Looney, in place of Jonathon Kuminga — who never got on the court — was the difference.

Looney was a Warriors first-round pick out of UCLA, but injuries (two hip surgeries) and ailments (stomach issues) kept him from becoming a consistent force. Besides, more often than not, the Warriors used their small lineup, the 6-6 Green starting at center.

But Memphis, bulkier and rougher, played physical basketball. Green made his recommendation and Brown, in charge with head coach Steve Kerr under COVID protocol, accepted the plan.

His teammates liked it because not only did they realize they were getting outmuscled but also because Looney, after all his hard work and rehab, is exceedingly popular.

Thompson decided Looney needed a new nickname. “He should go by ‘Kevon Looajuwon,” Klay insisted with an oblique reference to Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, “because he really was a freak out there.”

The leader and inspiration, Green, had a lot of good things to say about a lot of good people, especially those who had been with the team this past decade of success.

“We went two years out of the playoffs, in large part because of Klay’s absence,” Green said. “He’s probably the toughest and most competitive player I’ve played with ... And look at Loon.

“There was a lot of talk in this series about fouls, and this and that should be reviewed. But this was a great series with amazing teams.”

Dare we say father knows best?

Memphis bigs are a big problem for the Warriors

The headline was yet another reminder of sporting unpredictability: “Grizzlies are running out of time to go from good to great.”

It appeared Tuesday in the New York Times, roughly 24 hours before a one-time 55-point lead made the Grizzlies look quite great, stomping the Warriors, who looked quite terrible.

It was only on Saturday, in Game 3 of this NBA Western conference semifinal, that the Warriors appeared less than terrible, constructing a large lead of their own, more than 40 points, and you almost felt sorry for Memphis. Almost.

Game 6 is Friday, and although it’s at Chase Center in dear old San Francisco, where the Warriors are unbeaten so far this brief postseason, and although the Grizzlies remain without their best player, Ja Morant and his bad knee, crazy things happen. Like the Dubs falling 55 points behind.

NBA playoff series are like chess matches in sneakers. You try this move, and then the other team tries that move. Who said Steph Curry and Klay Thompson ought to try shooting better? The opponent is not allowing either to get open.

Memphis has a size advantage. The playoffs generally are more physical than regular season games, and the matchups are so similar, the guy guarding you knows every more you’re going to execute before you do.

There was no question Memphis was overly determined — summer is just a missed defensive assignment away. The question is whether the Warriors were, shall we say, less than attentive?

After the rout Wednesday in Memphis, Charles Barkley, who can be as pointed as he is knowledgeable, told the post-game audience on TBS that the Warriors merely “went through the motions.“

Maybe a little bit too strong about one of basketball’s more noteworthy franchises, but when you trail by half a hundred points, something is wrong. Now the issue is how to make it right, when you’re built on speed and shooting rather than on muscle.

On Wednesday, the Grizzlies out-rebounded the Warriors 55-37. Yes, Memphis has the 6-foot-11 Kiwi, Steven Adams, but the Warriors have handled big guys before.

“Part of it was their physicality,” said Warriors assistant Mike Brown. “We talked about an alertness and an awareness when it came to bodies, boxing people out early, and we didn’t have that. There were too many times throughout the game their bigs, or even their wings, just kind of ran by us, and we turn and look and they’re jumping over and coming up with the rebound.”

The Warriors’ tallest healthy players are 6-foot-9 Kevon Looney and Nemanja Bjelica. Draymond Green, 6-7, usually is the center when the Dubs go small.

No Gary Payton II, no Andre Iguodala. They’re injured. That happens. No intensity? That shouldn’t happen.

Draymond likes his rep, even if NBA officials don’t

Reputations are inescapable. Draymond Green understands that, as much as he understands how best to play basketball, aggressively, intensely, unforgivingly.

“I’m never going to change the way I play,” said Green in what could be considered as much a threat as a promise.

He was speaking to the media in Memphis, where on Tuesday night in Game 2 of the NBA Western Conference semifinals he hopes to do what he could not in Game 1: stay on the floor.

Green was tossed, ejected, with 1:18 left in the first half for what was described as a flagrant foul — one of many he’s received over time but in truth was a league response to that prickly reputation.

That the Warriors managed to beat the Grizzlies, 117-116, verified the idea that Golden State once more is among the sport’s elite franchises.

What Green verified was that he remains true to his style and beliefs. “The way I play,” Green said with a softness that belied his determination, “got me three NBA champions, four All-Stars and a Defensive Player of the Year.”

The championships, of course, in concert with people named Steph Curry (he had 24 points Sunday night in Game 1) and Klay Thompson (he hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 36 seconds). One of the new guys, if you will, Jordan Poole, had 31.

So Draymond did foul Brandon Clarke, hitting Clarke in the face as he leaped to stop a jumper. Then as Green tumbled, he reached out and grabbed Clarke’s jersey, pulling hm to the court.

It made great theater, replay after replay being shown while the officials debated the severity of the foul. On ABC-TV the announcers, including Mark Jackson — your presumed next coach of the Sacramento Kings — didn’t think it was a flagrant 2, which results in ejection.

But it was. Green jauntily ran by the Warriors’ bench, slapping teammates’ hands in farewell, and quickly dashed to the locker room, done for the game.

According to the New York Post, Green had been prepared to start dancing at the call because he thought the Grizzlies would be charged with the foul.

But he was haunted by the past, the memories of Draymond being suspended in the 2016 finals, the one he blew, a 3-1 game lead lost to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

It’s like the kid in the third grade who acts up and then is admonished in front of the class by the teacher. From then on, he’s blamed every time there’s trouble, even if he is innocent.

On a postgame podcast, Green conceded what we all have come to realize, that suspicions linger, and who better to accuse of wrongdoing than the serial wrongdoer.

“If you’re involved in this play,” Green conceded on the podcast, “you probably shouldn’t dance. You should expect the unexpected.” A very good point by a man who, before he was ousted, got six points.

“We went through the definition of a flagrant 2 foul,” said Green. “I’m not sure that play would quite fit the definition of a flagrant 2 foul. I’m not sure it’ll meet that criteria.”

Apparently, it meets whatever criteria the NBA decides.

“Let me say reputations are earned,” said Draymond. “I love my reputation. It made me who I am in the NBA. Coming from a 35th pick who they said would never play a day. So I appreciate my reputation, in the NBA, well, here I am on TV in your living room; you come to games. I’m not one to shy away from it.”

As NBA officials are only too aware.

Warriors playoffs: Everything except Durant

Eight points is nothing. Steve Kerr told us that, emphasizing how quickly a lead — or deficit — can disappear in the NBA. But at the end of their playoff game against Denver, four points was everything for the Warriors.

They were winners, 102-98, on Wednesday night. That’s the way the league likes it.

Not necessarily favoring one team or another — although the Lakers do jack up the TV ratings — but favoring games that keep the ending in doubt and the customers involved.

Games that finish with a sigh of relief. Or a shout of frustration.

The NBA sometimes seems a mashup of talent, hysteria and unpredictability, a perfect blend in this age of Twitter and three-pointers.

When we last looked, the Warriors still were in the postseason and the Brooklyn Nets, the preseason favorites, were not. Kevin Durant had a great final game for the Nets but missed chunks of the season because of a knee injury.

Durant left the Warriors after the 2019 playoffs, because, according to some, he wanted to be on a team where he was the main man.

On the Warriors, then and now, that role has belonged to Steph Curry.

Which seems quite acceptable to his teammates.

You need stars, people who shoot like Steph, Klay Thompson and now Jordan Poole; people who play defense and control the pace, like Draymond Green.

You also need understanding and cooperation.

What would the Warriors have been like with a healthy Durant as part of the equation for another season or two? They did win two championships with him. Ah, to contemplate what never will be.

And also to contemplate how far the Warriors might go in these playoffs.

They have the third man on offense, Poole, joining Curry and Thompson. They very well might have the second man on defense, Gary Payton II.

“He fills a lot of different roles,” Curry said about Payton. “If (on offense) he’s making his catch-and-shoot threes, he’s tough to game-plan against, because you probably got your big man on him. He can roll to the basket.

“What he gives us on defense is amazing already, and then when you put teams in different positions, when they are defending us, he’s kind of roaming all over the place.”

If Payton, whose father graduated from Skyline High in Oakland before going to Oregon State and the pros, seems a bit of a surprise, well, the NBA is full of surprises. Who imagined the Lakers and LeBron James wouldn’t even be in the playoffs?

Curry, who had been out the last couple weeks of the regular schedule because of a foot injury, started the Wednesday night game against the Nuggets after coming off the bench the previous four games.

“You put your ego aside and understand things change quickly,” said Curry, who scored 30. In the final seconds, he put his hands together miming as if he were going to sleep, using his hands as the pillow. Bad taste or good fun?

“It’s nice to have home-court advantage in a game like (Wednesday),” said Curry. Four of the five games were at Chase Center in San Francisco. “We haven’t been here in so long, and close-out games are difficult.

“Like we need to feed off the crowd. I was trying to make sure they knew how much they meant to us, and how to keep them engaged. It was fun. It was electric. It was loud. It was kind of collective anxiousness in there, and a great celebration afterward.”

Something Kevin Durant, with the Nets, didn’t get to experience.

Warriors’ Big Three bring nostalgia and talent

The head coach, Steve Kerr, called it a good lineup. Let’s do him better. It’s a great lineup, a lineup that features three of basketball’s best the past few years, a lineup that unfortunately hasn’t been together much this season

A lineup that was on court Saturday night in a reminder and rejuvenation, when the Warriors pounded the Denver Nuggets, 123-107, winning game one of the playoffs.

A lineup that surely will be used Monday night when the Warriors, again playing at Chase Center, hope to hold on to their home court advantage.

A lineup bringing together nostalgia and talent.

Jordan Poole, the almost new guy, was — well, is brilliant too strong a word? — dominant with 30 points. And Kevon Looney, hardly a stranger, was the defender and rebounder he’s required to be.

Still, what was joyful, as well as successful, was having three of the old favorites return and work together as they did in the not-so-distant vintage years.

There they were, Steph Curry (you knew he would be playing despite being out the last few weeks with that ankle injury); Klay Thompson (after all he went through missing two straight seasons, he wasn’t going to miss this chance; and Draymond Green (whose absence for several weeks because of an injury was noticeable).

Our athletic heroes come and go with alarming speed. Buster Posey was a rookie yesterday, or so it seems, and now he has retired. Serena Williams is done. There’s always a new kid on the block. So appreciate what we have until we no longer have it.

Who knows how far the Warriors will go this season? The Suns finished with a far better record. Curry, echoing the thoughts of those who feel disrespected and unappreciated, complained before the post-season began.

“Nobody is picking us to come out of the west," he said. "At least I don't think, except our families.” Which is understandable. The Dubs had too many people hurt.

Now the injured are back. Now it’s a page from the past. Except the Warriors are older, and there are numerous younger guys, ready to move in. It’s the nature of sport. And life.

Steph, Klay and Draymond are still around, however, giving their all and giving us an opportunity. Five years from now, we’ll reminisce, and then realize what we had — if we haven’t realized it already.

“It’s very special,” Thompson said of working his way back and reuniting with the other two — and returning to the playoffs.

“I thought about all the days in the gym.” Thompson said of his long rehabilitation, “in the doctor’s office, on the surgery table, and just be flying up and down the court, be knocking shots down and playing solid defense.

“It was a surreal moment for me, and to do it in front of the crowd we had, I give Dub nation amazing credit. They were so loud as we ran through the tunnel. Just something I won’t take for granted, just being able to play basketball. It was very surreal to me.”

For the rest of us, it was actual and wonderful. We hear and read negative things about athletes, so to hear Thompson and his teammates relish what they have is reassuring.

That the Big Three have teamed to win championships is not to be underestimated. That’s the essence of their popularity. But there’s more.

They’ve won hearts as well as games. One is just as important as the other. Watch and enjoy.

LeBron stops the boos — and the Warriors

One game, two conclusions: There’s nothing wrong with LeBron James. There’s plenty wrong with the Golden State Warriors.

On Saturday night in Los Angeles, the fans stopped booing the home team just long enough to watch James score a season-high 56 points and the Lakers defeat the Warriors, 124-116.

For the Lakers, who Monday night play at San Antonio, the victory ended a four-game losing streak.

For the Warriors, who Monday night play at Denver, the defeat extended a losing streak to four games.

“Right now I don’t give a damn about the 56,” was James’ post-game statement. “I’m just glad we got a win.”

That’s something Warriors coach Steve Kerr understood, because he didn’t get one in a game the Dubs led in the fourth quarter, as if that matters.

Suddenly the Warriors are in third place overall in the NBA. They already were behind Phoenix. Now they’re also in back of Memphis.

“There’s more games coming, so we’ve got to do this ourselves,” said Kerr, emphasizing the obvious. “We’ve got to dig out of the mud, and nobody’s going to help us.”

A tale of two Californians: in southern Cal, the patrons are more demanding — thinking back to the days of Magic and Shaq and Kobe, of showtime and multiple titles.

In Northern Cal, we’re grateful for the seasons of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and, oh-so-briefly, Kevin Durant.

The name missing from the time of Warriors success is that of Draymond Green, who for years — well, it’s just a few weeks, but it seems like years — has been rehabbing, not playing.

His last game was in January. You wonder if his next game won’t be until June.

Just as LeBron showed us he still is LeBron, on Saturday night Steph showed us he’s still Steph, 30 points and some poignant analysis on the post-game show.

“We’re finding different ways to lose,” said Curry. “Self-inflicted wounds.”

You understand what he means, but truth tell, the Dubs are losing only one way. They’re not getting enough points, and the opponent is getting too many.

One reasons is that Klay Thompson, back once more after two seasons recovering from two different serious injuries, has struggled.

Just because you’re finally back on the floor doesn’t mean you’re immediately going to be back in the groove. “I think Klay is pressing,” said Chris Mullin, the former all-star who now does commentary on Warriors telecasts.

Well, of course. He is impatient to be the player he was previously, and Warriors fans are no less impatient. Still, these things can’t be rushed. 

Thompson was out recently with what the injury report listed as  a “general illness.” Whatever, it knocked him off his stride.

“I feel like the sickness affected his conditioning and his timing,” said Kerr.

Timing is such a critical element, not only within the game, the passing, the rebounding, the switching on defense, but also on the scheduling.

If the Warriors played the Lakers on another night, well, LeBron is great but who would imagine he would get all those points?

And, in a way, make a point to anyone who figured he had declined.

“When he has it going like that,” Lakers guard Russell Westbrook, said of James, “there’s nothing nobody on the other team can do about it. He forced his will and was able to direct the game on all levels.

“It was really big, especially in a game where we needed a win.”

The Lakers got their needed win. The Warriors did not. “Obviously we’re going to have to get healthy,” said Kerr. “We desperately need Draymond.”

They need something, no question.

Klay wants more minutes, and he’ll get them

Time is always an issue for an athlete. His days, her days, are numbered from the very start. It’s only a question of how many remain.   

And then there are the injuries.

The time in treatment. The time in rehabilitation. The time watching others play the way you played and wondering whether you’ll be able to play again.

The time answering questions about when you’ll be back.

Klay Thompson, at last, is back. Maybe at the moment, after only two games — the third is Thursday night at Milwaukee — not as far back as he desires, but he’s a basketball player once more.

So much joy. So much satisfaction. Not only for Thompson, which is understandable after two and a half years incapacitated, but for the Warriors community, indeed the Bay Area.

Klay Thompson has been a great player. He comes across as a good guy.

Just as Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and the other Warriors we know — or think we know —come across as good people, touching lives if unintentionally.

Strange, and wonderful, how we grow attached to those we watch make baskets or touchdowns or birdie putts, people we may never get closer to than a television screen.    

It’s only laundry that unites us, we’re told, a jersey, a warmup jacket. But it’s the humanity that comes through. How can you not want him to succeed? And succeed he will.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr seemed pleased the way Thompson performed Tuesday night at Memphis, if not the way the game went. Klay hit 5 of 15 shots and scored 19 points, while the Dubs were beaten, 116-108.

“He looks quick, agile, strong,” said Kerr, evaluating Thompson. “It’s really exciting to see him playing this well this early.”

For Thompson, after a battered leg followed by a torn Achilles tendon, it’s no less rewarding as it is exciting.

Long ago, a Warriors center named Nate Thurmond reinjured a knee that had been surgically repaired. He was despondent. “I just can’t go through it again,” said Thurmond.

He did, however. It was the price one had to pay to return to the sport, to be able to use the remaining days of a career that already had grown short.

With fortune, the career of Klay Thompson blossoms again. He will be 32 next month. The future, so questionable after the injuries, now should be full of jump shots and glee.

Thompson’s father, Mychal, was the No. 1 overall choice (by Portland) in the 1978 NBA draft. Klay is well schooled in the sport and in life. That doesn’t make the injuries easier to accept, but it does provide a sense of perspective. Change is inevitable.

“We will ramp up the minutes for Klay,” said Kerr, after Thompson played 20 against the Grizzlies. “It’s a process. He will be getting stronger in the next three, four weeks.”

Kerr also said Thompson has to learn the moves and games of men he had never played with such as Gary Payton II and Jordan Poole. In addition, the NBA style has been altered, teams frequently going to a smaller lineup.

“We’re going to want Steph (Curry) and Klay down the stretch in games,” said Kerr, who has been as patient waiting for Thompson’s return as Thompson himself.

“My minutes are restricted,” said Thompson. “I want to play 35 a game. You just can’t take that much time off and be back where you were. But I feel great. I don’t even feel tired.

“One thing is the same — every team wants to beat us. We’re going to get everybody’s best shot.”

They should respond with enough shots of their own. Klay is back.

Steph brings out the best in sports

This was sport at its best, a record, respect, appreciation, sharing. It was perfect timing in an imperfect world.

This was as good as it gets on the night Steph Curry got a place in history, along with an outpouring of praise from those who perhaps best understand what he has accomplished: others who play basketball at the highest level.

Tweets from so many, including LeBron James.

Curry literally was moved to tears as he considered what he had achieved, even though breaking the NBA record for career 3-point baskets had reached the point of inevitability.

He knew he was going to do it. We knew he was going to do it. He did it Tuesday night on arguably the game’s grandest stage, Madison Square Garden in New York City.

If you can make it there, the lyrics tell us, you can make it anywhere.

What Curry made at the 7:33 mark of the first quarter of the Warriors 105-96 win over the Knicks was the 3-pointer that would surpass Ray Allen’s mark of 2,973.

Before the game ended, among his total 22 points, Curry would make three more 3s, adding to a number that will grow as long as Steph keeps playing and shooting — and the contract for the 33-year-old lasts another three and a half seasons.

“I hope to push the record a long way,” said Curry.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr, an excellent long-range gunner long ago, admiring the post-game celebrations, again reminded how much Steph had affected basketball.

“There were 82 3-pointers taken (Tuesday),” Kerr said. “So, on a night when he broke the record, the sum of both teams’ 3-point attempts was kind of a testament to Steph’s impact on the league.

“It’s a different game now, obviously. But Steph made it a different game.”

After Reggie Miller, who was broadcasting the game for TBS, and Allen, who was in the building, made their contributions, Reggie holding the record until Allen grabbed it.

The two were thrilled to be part of an evening that in a way was as much theirs as Steph’s.

“Reggie came up to Boston to cheer me on,” said Allen, who was with the Celtics. “As Steph got closer to the record, I told myself I had to find a way to be there.”

So he was, along with Curry’s parents — his father, Dell, played in the NBA — a few coaches and friends, and a Garden crowd of 19,000, some of which paid prices inflated by the importance of the event.

“When I came in the league,” said Curry, as a matter of fact and not pretension, ”I watched things like this happening. Now 11 years later, I’m the one.”

Indeed, the one who has brought attention to the Bay Area as well as himself. In an activity too full of bitterness and criticism, egotism unfettered, Curry seems universally loved.

He plays basketball beautifully and joyfully. As well as successfully.

“He’s great at the one skill every player wants to be great at,” Tim Legler, a very competent shooter himself, said on ESPN. “Steph has redefined shooting. The things he does to get open are incredibly difficult. He makes it look easy.”

Although Kerr thought he had prepared himself for the basket that would make Steph the record holder, he was awed by the reaction after it took place.

“The moment was spectacular,” Kerr said. “The aftermath was more emotional than I expected it to be. It was just an outpouring of love and appreciation for Steph from seemingly everyone in the building. Beautiful, beautiful.“

As are the gifts that ESPN reported Curry gave long-time teammates Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala for their support — Rolex watches.

Time pieces from a man whose play is timeless.

Steph lets his shots do the talking

Steph Curry was missing. Not with his shots. From the scene.

This was on Wednesday night, and as we all know — especially the guys at ESPN, who control our sports perceptions — only two people count in the NBA: Steph and that LeBron James guy.

LeBron, after helping the Lakers beat the Celtics, stood at a microphone and said, “I just like the way we competed tonight on both sides of the ball. A lot of intensity.”

Nothing to be etched in stone, but at least more than we heard from Curry.

Which was nothing.

Maybe Steph was trying to allow his teammates to get the attention after a 104-94 win over the troubled Portland Trail Blazers. Or maybe he was just weary from answering questions about the record he’s about to break.

You know the one, the lifetime total for 3-point baskets. For another few hours — or if Curry is off when the Warriors begin their road trip at Philly on Saturday, another few days — that record is 2,973, held by Ray Allen, who retired after the 2012-13 season.

Should we be excited about Steph’s quest? Indeed. He now is only nine threes short of tying Allen.

But unless the NBA is going to shut down tomorrow, Curry’s record is going to grow and grow. And grow. 

He has miles to go and many shots to make. The man is 33, and assuming he plays two seasons after this one — hey, LeBron will be 37 in a couple of weeks and he’s still rolling — Steph ought to put the record not only out of reach but beyond our imagination. He might hit another 200 of those long-range shots.

Not that teammate Draymond Green believes Curry will retain the record, once he sets it.

“Most people, especially in the analytical department, didn't think Steph Curry shot enough threes,” Green told NBC Bay Area Sports. 

“To this day, they still don't think Steph Curry shoots enough threes. That just goes to show you where the game is going and why his record will be broken probably within five to six years of him playing the game."

Who knows? What everyone does know is Curry helped remake the sport. Kids who wanted to dunk now just as often want to score from beyond the arc, which in the NBA is painted at 23 feet 9 inches.

"It totally changed the way the game is played,” said Green, “just by the way Steph Curry and Klay Thompson have been playing the game all this time.”

What Curry should be celebrated for is his accuracy and consistency. Along with his showmanship. Dribbling two basketballs in practice and connecting on those 35-foot baskets in pre-game warmups are fan favorites.

The eternal saying is that basketball is a team game, and while that’s true — hit the open man, switch while caught behind a screen on defense — it’s the individuals who make the game the joy it is.

The movie industry figured out a century ago that stars sold tickets. You didn’t need Shakespeare if Marilyn Monroe or Humphrey Bogart were on the marquee. In the NBA, what matters is who’s on the court — LeBron or Kevin Durant or, yes, Steph Curry.

As much as we love to watch them, others love to play with them — in effect sharing their success as well as adding to it. The other Warriors are well aware of the chase, at Chase Center and other locations, of a record.

“The vibe is still good,” said the Warriors’ Otto Porter Jr. “We are trying to figure out how to win playing Warriors basketball. We are trying to get good looks cutting off him. Steph is playmaking whether he is on or off the ball.”

Mostly when he shoots, he is on target.

Warriors soldier on after loss to Spurs

SAN FRANCISCO — They’re at it again Monday night. No time to rue. No time to relax. “This is how the NBA works,” said Steve Kerr.

He went through it as a player. Now he’s going through it as coach of the Warriors.

An impressive victory over the Suns on Friday night; a gloomy loss to San Antonio despite a comeback Saturday night; a day off Sunday for what little rest is possible, and here come the Orlando Magic, a third game in four nights.

Maybe Steph Curry will have recovered. “It looked to me like fatigue,” Kerr said of Curry missing 21 of his 28 shots. Probably the Warriors won’t fall behind by 22 points. We’ll find out out soon enough.

What we should have known is the season is destined to be a grind, although it’s doubtful there will be many games like Saturday night’s at Chase Center, when the Dubs were out of it, then worked back into it and took a 5-point lead before losing to the Spurs, 112-107.

Kerr couldn’t say much except he was proud of his team. “We’ve got a bunch of competitors,” was the affirmation.

But isn’t everybody in the NBA — except the Oklahoma City Thunder, who lost a game last week by a record 73 points?

Highly paid athletes may stumble, but they don’t quit. 

It was a rigorous weekend for the Dubs, beginning with an important victory over a Suns team that had won 18 straight.

“We don’t have to win it,” Kerr said in response to a question about that necessary victory. “It’s an 82-game season, and we didn’t have to win (Friday) night. It’s the body of work that counts.”

If you’re looking for perspective, that is. Still, it’s each individual game that matters, against the particular opponent or in the standings. And when the time comes in spring for the playoffs.

The psychology of success — or failure — is not to be overlooked. You beat a team often enough, and you’ll know you can do it in the postseason. So will they. 

The elephant missing from this room, certainly, is Klay Thompson, who may return in a couple weeks from the consecutive leg and foot injuries that have kept in from NBA competition since June 2019.

He not only scores, he enables Curry to score and plays outstanding defense. Or did. Surely the thought of a healthy, helpful Thompson allows Kerr a degree of serenity.

Yet even without Klay and with an understandably weary Steph (he was 7-of-28 for 27 points Saturday), the Warriors have gone 19-4.

“There are nights when things are stacked against you, in terms of the schedule,” Kerr pointed out, referring to back-to-back games that involved the Suns against the Warriors and then, a night later, the Warriors against the Spurs.

“When Phoenix played us (Friday), they probably got in (to San Francisco) around 3 a.m. That’s all part of being in the league. It’s going through scheduling stuff and trying to find the energy to win. (Saturday) it looked to me like our whole team, not just Steph, was a step behind. We’ll bounce back.”

Before the season, the question was whether the Warriors had a chance against the Lakers, but L.A. has been without LeBron James for numerous games, either because of a groin injury or Covid-19 protocol.

James will turn 37 at the end of the month (Curry is 33), and his age may be an issue. The Lakers do have Anthony Davis, Carmelo Anthony, and Russell Westbrook, each an all-star.

Yet it’s the Suns, NBA finalists a year ago, who figure to be the team the Warriors must beat.

Assuming they don’t beat themselves, as almost happened Saturday night.

Steph’s ‘greatest show in basketball’

JJ Redick knew how to shoot a basketball. He made 2,000 3-pointers in his NBA career. But Redick doesn’t know how Steph Curry shoots it.

“He’s tapped into a higher level of consciousness,” Redick said of Curry. “Right now, Steph’s the greatest show in basketball.”

Redick was speaking Tuesday night on Scott Van Pelt’s ESPN show. Curry had scored 37, made nine 3-pointers in a Warriors romp over the Nets.

He got 40 on Thursday night when the Warriors, once trailing by 13, outscored Cleveland by a remarkable 36-8 in the fourth quarter to defeat the Cavaliers, 104-89.

The Warriors have been stopped only twice in 15 games.

The question asked of Redick, who in September retired after 14 seasons in the NBA, was how do you stop Curry?

Basically, you don’t.

“He’s gotten stronger,” said Redick. “He can shoot every which way. And he’s not just a shooter. He’s got imagination, daring. He can go right, left, dribble right, left. He can play physical, off the ball.

“He’s like no other player of my generation.”

A generation that for the 37-year-old Redick includes LeBron James, arguably the best in the NBA.

When Michael Jordan was the man of the game and the time, he virtually owned every arena he entered, from New York to L.A.

The people might have been Knicks fans or Lakers fans — or Warriors fans — but most of all they were MJ fans.

Now? “It’s him and LeBron,” Redick, a Duke grad who should know better, said ungrammatically about Curry and James.

We’ve heard it. We’ve seen it. When Curry’s lighting them up, hitting from the corners, from way beyond the arc, the crowd becomes as much of the story as the shots.

Dunks are thrilling, but except for a rare few of us, unattainable. “But we’ve all shot a basketball,” said Van Pelt. We can identify with Curry’s accomplishment.

If really all we can do is marvel at it.

Redick was one of the sport’s top long-distance shooters. Which makes him appreciate Curry’s brilliance.

Curry again had nine 3-pointers on Thursday, the 38th time he’s made nine or more in a game. “You know how many times I had nine?” Redick said as a matter of comparison. “One.”

When he played, beginning at Duke, Redick was feisty, combative — and unpopular, the focus of booing and derision.

But what the public thought of Redick is not reflected in what he thinks of other players. There is no jealousy, just honesty.

“He plays with joy,” said Redick. “It’s infectious to everyone in the arena except the opposing team.”

They used to say that about Magic Johnson who, while others scowled or frowned or gasped, played with a smile, as if he were happy to be there.

Curry is living the good life, off court as well as on. He has a great family. He’s at the forefront in support of various charitable programs.

He’s been on three NBA championship teams, and it’s beginning to look like he may well be part of another.

“You see the way his teammates respond when he’s going well,” said Redick. “I never got to play with him, but I assume it must be a lot of fun.”

It is, for teammates, spectators, and the community.

Redick alluded to a popular tavern game. “Watching him,” said Redick, “is like having a perfect buzz and making the last shot in beer pong.”

He remembered a few seasons back when Klay Thompson was in the Warriors’ lineup, and he or Curry or both were unguarded and making one three after another.

Thompson, injured since the playoffs of 2019, finally is supposed to return in a month or two.

“Back two, three years ago,” Redick reminded, “they had the most open looks on threes in the NBA. The scary thing is when Klay comes back, they’ll have more.

“Shooting begets shooting.”

As only a shooter would know.

Warriors keeping NBA confused, fans enthralled

So they can’t keep this up, and everybody knows (or think they know) the Lakers and Nets are superior teams.

But hasn’t this been fun — as well as surprising?

There are the Warriors playing like it was 2015. Or 2017 or 2018, winning and winning. And winning.

And keeping the NBA in confusion.

You ask yourself how this is happening, and then you ask how much better it could be with Klay Thompson back on the court.

This Curry kid seems unstoppable. True, at 33, the other night becoming the oldest with 50 points and 10 assists, he’s no longer a kid. But that’s merely a figure of speech.

Winning is great, certainly, and heading into Friday night’s game against Chicago at Chase Center the Dubs have won six in a row and 10 of their last 11. Winning unexpectedly is even better.

And this recent run has been unexpected, if not unappreciated. You have to think management, primarily GM Bob Myers, knows something about basketball — and, no less importantly, about basketball players.

Yes, the play of Steph Curry is a given. But how about those other guys, Draymond Green, who unfortunately may be out because of a contusion in his left leg received in Wednesday’s 123-110 win over Minnesota; Kevon Looney; Andre Iguodala; Jordan Poole; and most noticeably after 35 points against his old team, Andrew Wiggins.

“Keep protecting him,” Curry said of Wiggins.

What journalists up in Minneapolis said, in so many words, is that Wiggins is a semi-bust. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 draft, Wiggins was chosen by Cleveland but quickly enough in a transaction that included the Cavaliers and 76ers was traded to Minnesota, where he was not liked at all by the critics.

Finally, in February 2020, the Warriors got him for Jordan Poole, and a blogger named Brandon Anderson ecstatically wrote, “The Timberwolves might have saved their franchise, while the Warriors made a catastrophic misstep that could put their dynasty on the brink.”

Strong stuff, huh? Also misguided stuff. Rather than a catastrophe, the Warriors with the 6-foot 8 Wiggins in the game have been a success.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr had a one-word analysis of Wiggins’ performance against the T-Wolves, “fantastic” — a considerable distance from catastrophic. “Obviously excited to play against his old team,” he added.

Wiggins provided not only scoring but rebounding and defense. He takes on the big man, in height and reputation, from the other team.

In basketball at any level, from prep to pro, you not only need the pieces, the athletes, but you need the pieces to fit. When the Warriors are at their best, and they’ve been close at times, they pressure on defense, get the missed shot and roar down the court with the ball.

“I had a good start,” said Wiggins, who had 22 in the first half.

That sentence would also describe his team’s play these opening weeks, something not to be dismissed.

The NBA season is long (82 games) and difficult with constant travel. There will be injuries and questionable calls. A team needs to get in front and try to stay there. Let the rest play catch-up.

The Warriors have spoiled their fans and themselves. Kevin Durant might leave, Klay Thompson might be severely injured — but there was no thought of rebuilding, of playing for next year. The Dubs’ future is now.

“We have a lot more shooters,” Kerr said about this Warriors squad, “and this opening the court up for guys to be able to cut, throw lobs and get a lot more stops and runs.

“I think last year we had really good defense, but we fouled a lot. This year we haven’t been fouling as much. We are able to push the ball and run in transition.”

They’ve got Gary Payton II, Juan Toscano-Anderson and the oldest of old reliables, Iguodala.

“We can finish above the rim,” said Kerr, “so that’s really been exciting to watch.”

So is the ball going through the hoop.

Now Warriors face the L.A. team without celeb fans

So big an emotional swing in so short a time.

The prelude to the Warriors’ opener was all about the other team, understandable perhaps because the other team is Hollywood’s team, the Lakers.

Everyone was calling them the “new-look” Lakers.

As they used to say in the old movies, “Hello, sweetheart. Give me a rewrite.”

Or if you’re the Lakers, “Give me some baskets at crunch time.”

Only one game. But in the great scheme of California things, including rivalries and Bay Area paranoia, a very big game.

A game in the right direction. A game the Warriors won, 121-114. A game that allowed Warriors coach Steve Kerr to observe, “We could be a good team.”

More on that possibility will be available when the Warriors play their first home game of the 2021-22 season on Thursday night at Chase Center.

It’s against the other L.A. team, the one with less hype, no championships and without Jack Nicholson, Adele or other celebrity fans — the Clippers. 

Will the Lakers, Russell Westbrook joining LeBron James and Anthony Davis, develop into the great team that some have predicted? And will the Warriors surprise us pessimists? Indeed, one game is of little indication.

Yet the simple fact that the Dubs outscored the Lakers in the fourth quarter — remember those depressing days when Kobe or Magic or Shaq would own the closing minutes? — had to be uplifting.

After the Dodgers ousted the Giants in the playoffs (never mind what they’re doing against the Braves) and the Rams moved ahead of the 49ers in the standings, the Lakers were going to make it a SoCal sweep. NorCal was nowhere.

Then, even playing poorly, somehow the Warriors defeated the Lakers in Los Angeles.

That was without Klay Thompson, who we’re told, after two years of recovery and rehab from those injuries to his knee and Achilles tendon, will play in November.

The litany is that basketball is the ultimate team game. Yet, winning and losing depends on an individual, on LeBron for the Lakers or Steph Curry for the Warriors.

They so often get the big basket or rebound. Or steal.

Curry, however, was not at his best on Tuesday. “I played like trash tonight,” he told TNT. OK, but it was the kind of trash that produced Steph’s first triple double in five seasons, 21 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds.

“He really only cares about the win,” said Kerr. “Steph always comes back with a good game.”

Said Draymond Green, still the rock on defense, about the win even with Curry’s off-night, "It's a huge lift. We relied on him so much, and we're still going to rely on him a lot.

“When he can have a night like he did tonight, not get it going, we still come out with a win, that's great. 

The Warriors struggled early because Kerr chose to go with his so-called small lineup, which proved disadvantageous against the taller Lakers (the 7-foot Davis, the 6-9 James), if not disastrous.

“We’re still learning each other,” said Kerr. “Do we want to go big and get the glass, or do we want to play small and spread the court? As the seasons goes, we’ll figure it out.”

What pleased Kerr was the decline in fouls from last season when the Warriors had the highest number in the NBA, many from reach-ins. “Our defense was fine,” said Kerr.

That was the reason the Warriors came back in the second half. Defense was what propelled the Dubs to three titles and five straight appearances in the NBA finals.

Those days are gone. The Warriors are working for a return.