Warriors-Spurs rocks, while Rockets bore
Enjoy this series while you can. Warriors-Spurs offers a brand of basketball that defined intelligence, humility and success over the years — and seems to be under siege at the outset of the NBA playoffs.
The Houston Rockets have the league’s best record and an easy choice, James Harden, for the MVP award. They’ve taken the three-point revolution — launched by the “Splash Brothers” Warriors of the 2014-15 season — and turned it into a bizarre art form. Random works of a kindergartner’s finger painting are more pleasing to the eye. But it works, perhaps even culminating in this year’s championship. Watching coach Mike D’Antoni’s team, you wonder: Whatever happened to mid-range shooting? He certainly doesn’t have the answer. “We’re not ever going to set up that shot,” he said earlier this season. “We’re not going to run any plays to give us a mid-range shot. We don’t do that.”
In other words, forget everything you ever learned about the NBA. Forget Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, masters of mid-range footwork. Forget Elvin Hayes, Oscar Robertson, Allen Iverson and Rip Hamilton. Just dismiss the creative mid-range genius we enjoyed with Rick Barry, Larry Bird, Bernard King and George Gervin. And while you’re at it, try to fool yourself into thinking that the ball-movement artistry of Willis Reed’s Knicks, Magic Johnson’s Lakers and Gregg
Popovich’s Spurs should be tossed onto the NBA’s retirement shelf with the standing hook shot and “three to make two” (free-throw shooters actually had that luxury for a spell).
Consistently, and without shame, the Rockets basically stand around on offense, waiting for Harden’s next move. “When they get a switch,” said ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy, “Harden and Chris Paul dribble-dribble-dribble, dribbledribble-dribble, and then finally they get by or shoot a three. It’s incredible to watch.”
Or to put it another way: Boring.
Just last year, Popovich’s Spurs eliminated Houston in the conference semifinals because they exposed the formula: Let Harden drive the lane, hound the likes of Eric Gordon,
Ryan Anderson and Trevor Ariza, and concede the mid-range jumpers that will never come. This is a different Spurs team, but it’s no surprise that Warriors head coach Steve
Kerr, who reveres Popovich as a friend and mentor, shares the traditional approach.
Kerr has repeatedly said that mid-range shots are a necessity in the playoffs and that they’re a “huge” weapon, especially when teams make a concerted effort to take away the threepoint options and leave 15-footers open elsewhere. He couldn’t care less about the math, and at season’s end, the Warriors ranked 17th in the number of three-point shots taken (San Antonio ranked a distant 27th).
So enjoy this series for the aesthetics. There will be threepoint shots in abundance, especially if the Spurs’ Danny
Green and Patty Mills get hot, but never at the expense of free-flowing sets that get everyone involved. For those enamored with harmony on the hardwood, this is the most appealing first-round matchup.
Don’t insult the man
Draymond Green could be an absolute terror in these playoffs. There is speculation that whenever the Warriors break up their superstar core, Green will be the most likely to depart. None of the top national NBA writers have him in the starting unit of their all-defensive teams. Nobody accepts a challenge quite like Draymond, so stand back ... Compelling figure on the Spurs’ bench: assistant coach Becky Hammon, properly forecast to become the first woman to coach a men’s Division I collegiate team — or an NBA head coach. “She’s got it all,” Popovich said of Hammon, 41, one of the all-time greats in the WNBA and a natural-born leader. “Whatever she wants to do with her future, I think it’s her choice.” ... Oklahoma City’s
Paul George needs to be diplomatic when it comes to his thoughts about impending free agency, but for him to say, “I’m not going to let the playoffs ... persuade or indicate where I’m going this offseason” — that’s simply not true. Of course it will ... Colin Kaepernick won’t play the NFL blacklist game, a stance tinged with stupidity and racism, and good for him. He told the Seattle Seahawks he couldn’t commit to stop kneeling during the national anthem, and the stuffed shirts panicked. On the other hand: As we’ve learned from the NBA, anthemrelated protests are passe. They distort the message. Kaepernick could have responded this way: “No problem. I’ve got more direct ways to get my message across. There’s no sense ticking off patriots and military veterans who don’t understand what I’m trying to say.” ... A bit of hysteria surrounded this year’s Masters, one noted writer suggesting there’s never been a greater time for “stars” in the field. Wow, is that wrong. Try 1962: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Gary Player, Ken Venturi, Julius Boros
and Billy Casper, among others. Or 1975, when Palmer, Nicklaus, Casper and Player were joined by Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Watson and Lee Trevino. Seriously, it’s not even close. Not to diminish this year’s event in any way. The best takeaway is that golf doesn’t need Tiger Woods to be relevant and thrilling ... As the A’s A.J. Puk was lost for the season, the thought struck: “Tommy John surgery” has a nice, solid ring to it. What if an obscure Giants pitcher came to be associated with that operation? Could it have been called
Boof Bonser surgery? Bruce Jenkins is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: bjenkins@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Bruce_Jenkins1