Warriors adjusting as plans change on the fly
As games across the NBA are postponed because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is prepared to adjust quickly as the season goes on.
“You kind of know that this kind of stuff is going to happen this year,” Kerr said, “so you just adapt accordingly.”
Following the league’s decision to postpone tonight’s game between the Warriors and Phoenix Suns, the league announced Thursday that the Suns’ game on Saturday against the Indiana Pacers is called off. It becomes the 10th game postponed during this pandemic-shortened season.
Although the Warriors and Pacers have all of their players currently available, the Suns do not have the league-required eight available players due to ongoing contact tracing within the organization.
Rather than travel to Phoenix as originally planned today, the
Warriors will return to the Bay Area, practice two-straight days over the weekend and fly to Los Angeles for their game against the Lakers on Monday.
Tonight’s game would have concluded the second back-to-back set for the Warriors so far this season.
Their next back-to-back set is Jan. 20 (Spurs) and Jan. 21 (Knicks) at Chase Center.
“Actually I’m really excited about it,” Kerr said. “I would have preferred to play the game and knock it out. But we haven’t had two straight days of practice in a long time — probably since training camp.
“This should be a good stretch for us,” Kerr continued. “We’d love to put out a good effort (against the Nuggets), play well, keep improving and take tomorrow off, get rested up and then have a couple of great practices. We should be able to make some solid improvement.”
Postponed games are expected to be rescheduled in the second half of the season. When the NBA released only the first part of the 2020-21 schedule last month, it announced the second half will also include postponed games “that can reasonably be added to the second half.”
After two blowout losses to start the season, the Warriors have shown significant improvement because of Draymond Green’s return to the lineup from a foot injury, Stephen Curry’s scoring production and role players such as Andrew Wiggins and Eric Paschall finding ways to contribute.
“How well we’re playing really isn’t a surprise,” said guard Kent Bazemore, who signed with Golden State this offseason and is averaging 5.1 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 16.4 minutes off the bench. “We’re going to be a force to reckon with.”