Personal motivations merge in team pursuit
CLEVELAND — In the 1990s, as a young boy growing up in the nation of Georgia, Zaza Pachulia learned basketball fundamentals on the dilapidated courts of a windowless gymnasium. Because there was no heater, he often practiced while wearing a hat and gloves.
In place of that old gym today is the Zaza Pachulia Basketball Academy. The complex, which accommodates more than 500 members, features four basketball courts, locker rooms, a weight
room, a restaurant and dorm-style living. One of the courts is the same hardwood Pachulia used to run on at the Bradley Center when he played for Milwaukee (he had the floor shipped in 267 pieces).
“I really hope that a lot of Georgian players will get recognition, and I can help them get out, play in the European leagues and the NBA,” Pachulia, the Warriors’ starting center, said Thursday. “Basketball is in our blood.”
By becoming the first Georgia-born player to win an NBA title, Pachulia would remind the kids at his basketball academy in Tbilisi that they, too, can reach the summit of their sport. It is just one of the personal motivations that Golden State, up 3-0 on the Cavaliers in the best-of-seven series, carries into Game 4 of the Finals on Friday.
Of the 15 players on the Warriors’ roster, six — Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Shaun Livingston, Andre Iguodala and James Michael McAdoo — were on the 2014-15 team that won the franchise’s first NBA title in 40 years. Only two others, Ian Clark and Kevon Looney, are trying to exorcise the memory of last June’s Finals collapse to Cleveland.
Of the seven remaining Golden State players, six — Pachulia, Matt Barnes, JaVale McGee, David West, Patrick McCaw and Damian Jones — are playing in their first Finals. Pachulia, West and Barnes are each in their 14th NBA season. Kevin Durant, in his first go-around with the Warriors, is on the verge of toppling LeBron James’ Cavaliers five years after James’ Heat beat Durant’s Thunder in the 2012 NBA Finals.
Individual motives aside, every Golden State player — outside of perhaps Barnes, who was signed in March after getting waived by Sacramento — has kept the focus on winning a title for more than eight months.
Last year, after giving playoff-level effort throughout an 82-game schedule to win an NBA-record 73 games, the Warriors appeared to wear down in the playoffs. In the regular season, Golden State did not lose back-to-back games. In the playoffs, it went 15-9. The Warriors needed to climb out of a 3-1 hole in the Western Conference finals to set up a Finals rematch with the Cavaliers.
An advocate for maintenance, head coach Steve Kerr was uncomfortable at times last season with the Warriors’ chase for 73. He learned. As early as training camp, he shot down the notion that Golden State would try to break its wins record. Kerr gave players off days and tracked minutes closely. On March 11 in San Antonio, at the end of an eight-city, 13day odyssey, he sat Curry, Thompson, Green and Iguodala.
These days, the Warriors are healthy and rested. They have won 30 of their past 31 games and are 15-0 in the playoffs. After going 12-1 through the first three rounds, Cleveland lost Games 1 and 2 of the Finals by a combined 41 points. It led much of Game 3 on Wednesday before it surrendered an 11-0 run to Golden State over the final three-plus minutes.
At this point, the Cavaliers’ championship hopes are on life support. No team in NBA history has overcome a 3-0 playoff series deficit. With arguably the league’s most loaded roster in decades, the Warriors aren’t likely to be the first to squander such a lead.
More than Golden State on Friday, Cleveland’s biggest challenge might be conjuring the necessary wherewithal for an upset when it knows it is probably delaying the inevitable. With their opponents facing elimination the previous three rounds, the Warriors won Game 4 by an average of 21.7 points.
“I think it’s just natural,” Kerr said of wanting to win Game 4. “You want to get it done. You don’t want to mess around. You’re up 3-0, you have all the momentum, you have to carry that through.”
When Pachulia was 7 years old, Georgia gained independence from the Soviet Union and was forced to rebuild much of its infrastructure. Running water and electricity were suddenly luxuries.
American TV was especially scarce. One day, while watching the Bulls in the Finals, he wondered: Could I play in that? It is with the knowledge that thousands of young boys in Georgia have the same aspiration that he enters game Friday.
“Those kids at my basketball academy are my friends,” Pachulia said. “They’re really trying to practice hard, and they’ve been waiting for this championship, I’m sure.”