Warriors now need to make history … again
OAKLAND, Calif. — Klay Thompson was poring over the stat sheet late Tuesday night, desperately searching for a silver lining from the Warriors’ twogame shellacking in Oklahoma City and unwittingly thinking aloud.
“We had 40 assists. That’s a positive,” the Warriors’ shooting guard said. “Is that right? Nope. Never mind. “Fifteen. Geez, way off.” The Warriors were still having trouble providing answers Wednesday as they faced the possibility that their magical season could be ended by a Thunder team simply playing better than the best team in regular-season history.
Oklahoma City’s back-toback wins — by a combined 52 points — have propelled the Thunder to a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference final series. The defending NBA champion Warriors on Thursday will play on the wrong end of an elimination game for the first time in head coach Steve Kerr’s two-year tenure.
Matching the intensity
“They’re healthy, they’re whole and they are determined,” Kerr said Wednesday about the Thunder. “They want what we have. We have a banner hanging up in here, and we take great pride in that. It’s a hard thing to accomplish.
“They’ve been close, but they haven’t done it. They’re coming after us. They’re really getting after it, playing well and competing. We’ve got to stand up to that. We’ve got to match that intensity.”
Kerr’s fire and brimstone came from the Warriors’ downtown practice facility in Oakland, where the team was granted the day off following a long and especially quiet flight home.
Jump shots from forward Harrison Barnes and backup center Festus Ezeli provided the backdrop echo as Kerr spoke. Many of the other Warriors got medical treatment and massages behind closed doors.
One of those was Stephen Curry, who has played six games since returning from a sprained right MCL that sidelined him for about two weeks. The back-toback MVP has produced back-to-back duds.
The Warriors were outscored by 58 points when he was on the court in games 3 and 4. He’s had nearly as many turnovers (seven) as assists (eight) in the last two games while shooting 35.1 percent from the floor and 23.8 percent from threepoint range.
Not giving excuses
Before the series, Curry said his knee is still a pain-tolerance issue and then pledged to avoid discussing the subject in the future. After Tuesday’s debacle, Curry said only, “I’m fine,” but Yahoo cited a source saying the point guard is no better than 70 percent healthy.
Kerr took exception to that comment.
“Nobody has said anything about Steph being 70 percent to me — not the training staff, relatives, friends or sources with knowledge of our team’s thinking,” Kerr said. “… I know he’s not injured. If he were injured, he would not be playing. … He may not be quite where he needs to be, but it’s not an injury. That’s the important thing to know. …
“If he were struggling with anything, I would know.”
If the Warriors are to become the 10th team in NBA history — out of 233 — to rally and win a postseason series after trailing 3-1, they’re going to need their best player to play at a much better clip than 70 percent.
Curry tried to take the blame for the predicament, and he wasn’t alone. All-Star Draymond Green did the same Tuesday, and Kerr shouldered the load Wednesday.
But none offered solutions on how to turn around a series in which the Thunder have outrebounded, outshot and — most of the time — outhustled the Warriors.
“I’m not sure what it is, but whatever it is, I’ll do it,” Green said. “… When you look at this team, you’re looking at a lot of things that people have never seen before. I’m not sure how many times people have been down 3-1 before, but we’re going to give people something they’ve never seen before.”