West’s best let play do talking
The Golden State Warriors have played 28 games since March 11 and have lost just once, a meaningless second-to-last game of the regular season when no star played more than 32 minutes and Klay Thompson got the night off.
They ran roughshod through the NBA Western Conference playoffs, rattling off a dozen straight victories, winning by an average of almost 20 points per game.
They are perhaps one ill-timed Draymond Green suspension away from being the two-time defending champions and tinkered with the roster last summer to add KEVIN FREAKING DURANT to a team that was coming off the greatest regular season in league history.
They still have two-time most valuable player Stephen Curry. They still have perennial sixth man award candidate Andre Iguodala. They have the stingiest defence in the playoffs this year, holding three opponents to an average of 99.1 points per 100 possessions, about nine points fewer than the average.
Yes, the Cleveland Cavaliers are great and on a roll almost as sweet as Golden State’s, but to even slightly dismiss the Warriors is an obvious case of Eastern time zone bias or James Mania.
“The best team in our league the last three years,” James said of Golden State after the Cavaliers dispatched the Boston Celtics in a fivegame Eastern final. “And they’ve added an unbelievable player in Kevin Durant this year. So it makes it even more difficult. They’re going to challenge us a lot: offensively, defensively, mentally, physically. We have to be ready for the challenge.”
The Warriors are not a group given to bold predictions — well, Green is, but he’s the outlier — and they are more cheeky than brash. They can give as good as they get in the quote department, but the overriding sense is they know they are good and don’t need to publicly proclaim it.
When Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue decided this week to say that he felt the Boston Celtics were harder to guard than Golden State, the Warriors did not take public umbrage.
“That’s his opinion,” said Mike Brown, the assistant filling in for ailing Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. “It’s cute.”
The final, which begins Thursday night in Oakland, does include an intriguing rematch between Durant and James — who met as members of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat, respectively, in 2012, with the Heat winning the series in five games.
It’s unlikely the two will be matched up against each other often — the Warriors are more likely to crossmatch and put Green on James — but it will be a compelling storyline.
Durant was just a kid in that 2012 series, overwhelmed at times, and knows this time around will be different.
“Yeah, it’s a little different, definitely,” he said after the Warriors completed their Western Conference final sweep of the San Antonio Spurs. “I can’t lie. I went when I was 23 years old, and it felt like the Western Conference finals was almost like the championship. Just getting to that point, you know how hard it is and how much work you put in to start the season. So it’s a little different now, obviously.”