Nice win, Toronto, but the real Warriors will show up in the spring
The Toronto Raptors kicked the Golden State Warriors’ butts on Wednesday. The Raptors’ victory — without Kawhi Leonard in the lineup and going up against the Warriors’ four healthy all-stars —was comprehensive and nearly wireto-wire; they led by as many as 26 points and chased the Warriors’ stars from the contest midway through the fourth.
Arguably the best team in the Eastern Conference ran the defending champions on their home floor. And since the Raptors swept the two-game season series, it’s going to be difficult for every level of the hot-take food chain to avoid running with this.
All credit to the Raptors but for those who decide that even part of their reaction to Wednesday’s loss is to panic about the state of Golden State, I have a quick message: Do so at your own peril. If you’re trying to find answers for June in December, you’re looking in the wrong place.
The Warriors lost Wednesday because they turned in a lackadaisical effort while the Raptors, playing without Leonard and for a head coach whose mother died this week, opted to make a statement with high-motor play from the opening tip. It was a script that we’ve seen play out time and time again with the Warriors — a team that’s constantly playing the long con and looking toward the late spring and early summer; one that often results in forgettable ef- forts in forgettable regularseason games.
More often than is truly fair, the Warriors get away with efforts like Wednesday’s because some pride kicks in come the second half of the game. For years, they have been good enough to play fullthrottle for one quarter (or half of a quarter) and win.
They still are. But in the nth year of this dynasty, it’s becoming harder for the Warriors to open ’er up like that.
And the culprit is isn’t diminished talent, it’s apathy. We saw it Wednesday, when the Warriors tried to make a third-quarter push. Shots weren’t falling and the Raptors declined to be intimidated. You could see Golden State’s players decide “nah” at the start of the fourth, when an unrelenting Raptors team opened up a 20-point lead. Could Golden State have kept pushing, looking for that trademark cohesion and verve after three quarters of clunkiness? Why bother?
The Warriors are going to make the playoffs and probably have home-court advantage throughout the Western Conference portion of it as well — all without mentally or physically exhausting themselves ahead of the real season, which starts in mid-April.
The Dubs’ oh-well attitude was evident after the contest, where coach Steve Kerr and the players tried to find the right balance between unaffected and indifferent. How can you explain that you don’t care without coming across as flippant or arrogant — with- out saying it outright.
There’s no doubt that while these Warriors remain supremely confident, this team is different than in year’s past.
This team is top-heavy and, against the top teams in the East, that could prove problematic. Golden State will struggle to tread water in bench vs. bench minutes.
But while the Raptors won the season series from the Warriors, Golden State gave Toronto everything it could handle north of the border with Leonard on the floor — Durant cooked him.
While there are no guarantees that the Warriors make it to a fifth straight NBA final, you’d be a fool not to bet on them. This is still the best team in the NBA. They’re simply over showing it.