All 4 All-Stars together again, with everything clicking in rousing win
The band was back together. Finally.
On Monday, the Warriors were, at last, their complete selves. For the first time in five weeks.
Draymond Green? Check. Stephen Curry? Yep. Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson? Present and accounted for.
Four All-Stars. On the floor together. The ones who went 8-8 when one or more were missing. And 10-1 when they all played together.
Make that 11-1, after a let-the-good-times-roll kind of night at Oracle and a 116-108 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.
On Monday, Green finally returned to the court after missing 14 of 16 games, including 11 straight due to a toe sprain. For the first time since Nov. 5, all four Warriors All-Stars were available.
Earlier in the day, the Warriors learned that
they had received Sports Illustrated’s annual “Sportsperson of the Year” award (yes, awkward wording when a team wins the award). The award is given for a team that “best exemplifies ideals of achievement and sportsmanship.”
But in recent weeks, that special glow that has surrounded the Warriors for the better part of four years has been slightly dimmed, the shine a bit tarnished. There was the Nov. 12 “incident” in Los Angeles, when Green and Kevin Durant had words and Green subsequently was suspended for one game.
Combine that chemistry breakdown with the absence of Stephen Curry for 11 games because of a groin strain and the first four-game losing streak of the Steve Kerr era, and there was valid reason for concern. The Warriors were, as Kerr said, banged up physically and banged up spiritually. Could the magic come back? Short answer: yes. The Warriors played with familiar joy and energy Monday night. During Curry’s absence, it was so obvious what was missing: the superstar, the point machine, the heart and happiness of the Warriors.
Green’s value is just as intense. Different, but also just as tangible. He pushes the pace, he’s tough and emotional and smart, and without him, the Warriors simply aren’t the same. Kerr calls what Green plays with a “force.”
There were quintessential Green moments in Monday’s game. Like when he was left alone at the arc, drained a threepointer and emphatically waved his hand at the defender, indicating the Timberwolves might want to guard him more closely.
At the end of the first half, with 4.4 seconds left on the clock, Curry tossed Green a lob under the basket — it would have been an easy bucket — but Green swung it back to Klay Thompson standing beyond the three-point arc. Thompson nailed the three at the buzzer to send the Warriors off the floor pumped up and celebrating.
“That was probably the play of the game,” Kerr said. “Just an amazing leap and pass and awareness. A brilliant play.”
If you were trying to analyze the body language between Green and Durant for any signs of strain, good luck with that. Nothing was visible to the eye. For the most part, the team looked like the same one that played together last season.
As we found out, it’s just not the same without Green. Without them. All together. With all four of their stars on the floor, the Warriors have a .910 winning percentage. Without one of their key players available, they have been average: a .500 team.
Sometime in the next few weeks, the Big Four will become the Big Five with the addition of DeMarcus Cousins, who practiced in Santa Cruz for the first time Monday. How that works will be fascinating to watch, one more novelty in a season that has been anything but a repeat of last season.
“It feels different this year,” Kerr said before the game. He was talking about the different combinations of players that he has been playing together but he could have been talking about everything. The whole season to this point.
In June, during the Finals, Kerr joked about how he was going to keep his group motivated this season. The topic came up regularly in training camp. As it turns out, it’s not an issue. The injuries, the internal drama, the addition of Cousins, the introduction of the Warriors to what Kerr calls “the real NBA” — a league of ups and downs and strife and difficulty — has meant there has been no boredom. No going through the motions, the way there was at times last season.
The Warriors haven’t looked dominant in the first quarter of this season, and the Western Conference is confusing. Only 3.5 games separate the top eight teams in the conference, and if the season ended today, Houston, Utah and San Antonio would be left out of the playoffs. It has been a weird start.
Nine of the Warriors’ next 14 games are at home and two of the road games are in Sacramento. The Warriors are staying close to home and are complete. This might be when they gain some momentum and some separation from the other teams in the West.
The band is back together. And that’s a scary thing for the rest of the league. Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annkillion