Winning streak fueled by rest, defense
SAN ANTONIO — Late in the first quarter Wednesday night at AT&T Center, with his Warriors down big to the Spurs, Draymond Green turned to a teammate on the bench.
“Yo, as crazy as this is about to sound, they’re up 22 points, and I don’t feel like they’re dominating us,” Green recalled saying.
A combination of errant layups, missed 50-50 balls and sloppy passes had dug Golden State a 29-7 hole. In that moment, with the Warriors seemingly poised for their third blowout loss to San Antonio this season, Green recognized that a comeback still was possible.
It was a belief rooted in how his team had performed in recent weeks without the injured Kevin Durant. Now, after storming back Wednesday for a 110-98 win, Golden State is in enviable territory. With only seven regular-season games left, the Warriors are 3½ games up on the Spurs for the Western Conference’s top seed.
Golden State’s nine-game winning streak has been punctuated by a two-game Texas swing in which it convincingly topped teams with the second and third best records in the NBA. Add in the fact that Durant is on target to return before the end of the regular season, and the Warriors are again the prohibitive favorites to win their second NBA title in three years.
“All their switching bothered us,” Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said of his team’s collapse Wednesday. “That’s
why they’re the best team in the league.”
It was less than three weeks ago that the Warriors were navigating the biggest regularseason wave of adversity in the Steve Kerr era. A confluence of factors — namely, Durant’s injury and a brutal eight-city, 13-day stretch of travel — had left Golden State spent both emotionally and physically. In the wake of a 2-5 rut that included the club’s first threegame skid since November 2013, the Warriors’ once-sizable lead over San Antonio for the No. 1 seed had been whittled to half a game.
So, what changed the course of Golden State’s season? Was there a fire-and-brimstone speech, some cinematic moment when the team rallied together?
Those inside the organization credit something far more mundane: rest. Much to the dismay of ticket-buyers, Kerr sat Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala for the Warriors’ March 11 drubbing in San Antonio. It afforded them three days to ease achy muscles before beginning a three-game homestand against Philadelphia, Orlando and Milwaukee.
Golden State also benefited from a less-taxing stretch of the schedule. Before their back-toback games this week in Houston and San Antonio, the Warriors played only seven games in 16 days. Five of those games were at home, and those seven opponents have a combined winning percentage of .465.
“There’s no question we’ve benefited from resting guys” on March 11, Kerr said. “We’re in a good groove, we’ve bounced back, we’re fresh.”
At the foundation of Golden State’s recent success is stingy defense. During their ninegame winning streak, the Warriors have held opponents to 96.4 points on 41.3 percent shooting. Blocks and steals have fueled their transition offense. Since that March 11 loss in San Antonio, Golden State boasts an average point differential of plus-15.9.
Curry and Thompson, whose shooting woes crippled the Warriors at times during their travel-heavy gantlet, have returned to their explosive ways. Typically content to facilitate for others and lock down opponents’ best shooters, Andre Iguodala has scored in double digits in five of his past seven games. Even David West, who had 15 points on 7-for-11 shooting Wednesday, is shouldering a heavier offensive load.
Having expanded roles now will only make the Warriors’ complementary players better once Durant returns. Unlike last season, when it exerted all its energy each night to chase an NBA-record 73 wins, Golden State is peaking late. With six of their final seven regularseason games at home and Durant poised to return soon, the Warriors are guarding against a repeat of last season’s playoff meltdown.
“We never really lost confidence in ourselves,” Curry said. “Down the stretch of the season, how different this year is versus last year, it’s all about just upping our performance and getting better as we go into the playoffs.”