San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Defense keeps Warriors in title hunt
It takes a while to get over the Stephen Curry effect. When he’s in a groove, which is most of the time, he consumes the evening highlights. Livingroom parties erupt in joy. Chase Center fans know they’re witnessing something extremely special, and opposing teams know that as much focus they place on the 3-point shot, they don’t have anything
close to Curry.
When it comes to the bigpicture discussion — can this team actually win the NBA championship? — there’s an even greater force at hand. Take your memories all the way back: How many teams can you recall having this many excellent defensive players?
Defense is a state of mind, centered as much on desire as skill, and with the really committed players, it never goes away. Imagine trying to get off a decent shot, everything on the line, against a lineup of
Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala (when healthy),
Gary Payton II, Andrew Wiggins and Juan Toscano-Anderson. Which is not to exclude hard-working
Kevon Looney, the limitless defensive potential of James Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga, or the steadily recovering Klay Thompson, one of the league’s top on-ball defenders at his best.
Seriously, if Thompson comes all the way back defensively, no NBA team can match up with this group. Even if he’s not quite the defensive madman of his prime, slowed a bit in his lateral movement, the Warriors still have the tools of complete lockdown. “They were all over the place,” Suns coach Monty Williams said after the Warriors’ 118-96 win Friday night. “When they’re playing defense like that, it seems like there’s seven guys on the floor that you’re playing against.”
Toscano-Anderson is positively thriving in this climate, saying, “It’s easier to pressure the ball because you know you have length and athleticism and great defenders behind you. Especially for myself, when Draymond is behind me,
I know I can do a lot more defensively. We always talk about that. We’ll take turns: I’ll pick up the ball, Wiggs will pick up the ball, and GP, you pick up the ball, and when you have support like that, it instills confidence and it’s contagious. I think that’s why we are the best defensive team in the league.”
Suns center Deandre Ayton said that after a two-game Golden State experience, he’s blown away by Green’s defense. “It’s impressive, man. He’s what Steph is offensively — it’s just not sexy,” Ayton said. “The average viewer doesn’t understand angles and being up to touch on a ball screen or sliding over and defensively trapping the ball.
That doesn’t show up in the statistics. I respect guys that are dominating at this game, and he’s dominating the hell out of the game on the defensive end.”
A few other thoughts: It’s known as a two-for-one: With some 30-35 seconds left in a quarter, fire off a quick shot so you’ll get another 24-second clock to finish it off. With 33 seconds left in the second quarter Friday night, Curry pulled up from 38 feet (at least) for a shot he knew he could make. That’s original thinking. Nobody raised a fuss. And it almost went in. Big challenge for Curry and Thompson, upon his return: Reach the level of Devin Booker
and Chris Paul when it comes to the big moments. In so-called “clutch time” — when the score gets within five points in the last five minutes or overtime — Booker and Paul rank 1-2 in the league. The Suns get the feeling they whiffed on 6-foot-10 power forward Jalen Smith, their first-round pick out of Maryland in 2020. He was the No. 10 selection; two picks later, Sacramento drafted guard Tyrese Haliburton, a star-quality player who would fit nicely into the Suns’ scheme. For the Warriors, in this year’s draft, it’s a matter of “what if we’d drafted one slot higher?” They appeared set to take 6-foot-8 Australian guard Josh Giddey with the seventh pick, only to watch him swept up by Oklahoma City. And with the 14th pick in the second round, with eyes on Oregon guard Chris Duarte, they were edged out by Indiana. Nobody in the Golden State camp is complaining about Kuminga or Moses Moody, and the draft order was obviously out of their hands, but Giddey’s special playmaking talents have been obvious and Duarte became an instant, eye-catching starter. Kelly Oubre Jr. found a nice landing spot in Charlotte. He wasn’t happy coming off the bench with the Warriors, but seems to be content with that role on an exciting Hornets team led by the wildly creative
LaMelo Ball, high-flying Miles Bridges, Terry Rozier
and Gordon Hayward. Oubre is averaging 15.3 points, with games of 25, 26 and 37 (against Memphis), “and the way Kelly’s playing, it’s elevating our team,” said coach James Barrego. ESPN’s “NBA Countdown,” aired before each national telecast, is a worthy rival to TNT’s heralded “Inside the NBA.” It’s a half-hour of nononsense basketball talk with sharp opinions from Jalen Rose, Michael Wilbon, host Mike Greenberg and Stephen A. Smith, often intolerable in all-sports discussions but finely tuned into the NBA. Rose and Wilbon have a way of smiling through Smith’s wicked jabs and holding their own. Reminding himself that he’s a genius, with spiritual insight beyond anyone’s understanding, Kyrie Irving continues to sit out the season in his refusal to get vaccinated. As much as Kevin Durant and James Harden respect their longtime friend, I’d love to know their private thoughts about being lured to Brooklyn by Irving, then watching him bail out. You’d find more respectable teammates in a prison pickup game.