Feeling at home while on the road
CHICAGO — During his four seasons as a reserve guard with the San Antonio Spurs, Steve Kerr came to embrace one of head coach Gregg Popovich’s go-to axioms: “We need to have an appropriate fear of the road.”
Kerr so appreciated the message that he has made it a staple of his pregame speeches in visiting locker rooms. Now, more than halfway through his fourth season as the Warriors’ head coach, he plans to only mention “appropriate fear” at Oracle Arena.
“We’re the only team ever who has needed appropriate fear at home,” said Kerr, whose team has a better record on the road (21-3) than at home (16-6). “We seem to automatically have the right approach on the road. Something’s going wrong (at home), so we need appropriate fear.”
With a victory Saturday
night in Houston, Golden State would set a franchise record with its 15th consecutive road win. Only two teams in NBA history — the 1971-72 Lakers (16) and the 1994-95 Jazz (15) — have boasted such a long road winning streak.
Though the Warriors have thrived away from Oakland since Kerr took over before the 2014-15 season, in franchise history they have never finished a season with a better record on the road than at home. That Golden State is poised to do just that reinforces how strange circumstances are for this team: More than any opponent, the Warriors’ biggest obstacle is their own tendency to get bored.
Road games, with their hostile fans and unfamiliar surroundings, breed a tension that Golden State often needs to stay focused. In front of friendly crowds at Oracle, the Warriors are more apt to commit silly turnovers, give up open driving lanes and squander big leads.
They are averaging 4.3 more points in road games this season than at home. Golden State averages 14.7 turnovers away from Oakland, and 15.9 at Oracle. Four of the six teams who have beaten the Warriors at home this season — the Pistons, Kings, Nuggets and Hornets — are on track to miss the playoffs. Outside of its Oct. 21 loss at Memphis, Golden State’s only road defeats have come against contenders Oklahoma City and Boston.
“I think on the road we kind of lock in differently than we do at home,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said. “In past years, we’ve been better at home. Even if you look at the games we lost at home, it’s like, ‘How many of those should we really have lost?’ I think it’s just a lack of focus. On the road, it takes a little more focus.”
Nothing in professional sports rivals the chaos of an NBA travel schedule. Practices are held whenever and wherever possible, and games can fall on any day of the week. To afford players time to rest before the next tip-off, teams often take red-eye flights after games. It is common for them to pull up to their hotel at 2 or 3 a.m.
Such factors especially matter for bad or mediocre teams. When Golden State was one of the worst franchises in the league in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it finished five straight seasons (1997-2002) with single-digit road win totals. In Stephen Curry’s rookie season (2009-10), the Warriors went 18-23 at home, but just 8-33 on the road.
Home-road splits have been less stark since Golden State became an NBA heavyweight. For the fourth season in a row, the Warriors have a road winning streak of at least eight games, a league first. Golden State also recently became the first team in NBA history to win 17 of its first 20 road games in three consecutive seasons.
“Your alerts are up when you walk into an opposing team’s building,” Curry said. “You feel that hostile environment, and you understand the difference between winning and losing.”
Few cities have been kinder to the Warriors lately than Houston. The last time Golden State lost a road game to the Rockets was Dec. 6, 2013, a stretch of seven meetings. Extending that streak to eight Saturday would make the Warriors the first team in NBA history to sweep two trips of at least five games in the same season.
“It’s going to feel weird,” Kerr said, “but I’m going to switch the script on these guys and only use ‘appropriate fear’ at home.”