Warriors beat Spurs for 2-0 series lead in NBA playoffs.
Iguodala shifts to playoff mode and it was worth the wait
OAKLAND >> Andre Iguodala didn’t play like this in the regular season.
No, he was saving performances this special for the “real season” — the playoffs.
And after the Warriors 116101 Game 2 win over the Spurs Monday, giving Golden State a 2-0 firstround series lead as the teams head to San Antonio, it’s fair to say that Iguodala’s best form was worth the wait.
You know that “switch” so many people said the Warriors needed to flip to start the postseason?
It might be defensive effort, or perhaps general focus. Or it might be Iguodala. Think about it: when Iguodala was at his best, fully engaged and playing hard, the Warriors looked unbeatable in the regular season. Those times were rare — a big game here or there — but they were obvious.
When was he was off — well, there’s one reason the Warriors are not the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference playoff bracket.
Now, Iguodala’s coaches and teammates didn’t like that binary comparison. All year long, they have extolled the hard-to-notice hardwood virtues of the 34-year-old, who is now in his 14th year in the league. Questions about Iguodala’s poor shooting percentages or his less-than-stellar onball defense in the regular season were met with
exasperation — they said that the game-tape told a different story.
But on Monday, the box score and tape were in sync: Iguodala was immense, again. Iguodala was on.
It is the playoffs, after all. Iguodala has been pacing himself for performances like these for the last seven months, and he had no problem admitting that fact, either.
“You want to be playing your best, so you prepare yourself and pace yourself to try to be in a good rhythm, at your best, starting at this time,” Iguodala said before the start of the postseason.
In Game 1, Kerr inserted Iguodala in the Warriors’ starting lineup — as a point guard — because he wanted to establish an early tone and that required having his best defensive lineup on the court from the opening tip. The result was emphatic: Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said Monday that the Warriors’ defensive performance in Game 1 was the best his team had gone against all year.
It didn’t matter that Iguodala had only three points in the game — he was vital to the win.
“(Game 1) was a true picture of what Andre does,” Kerr said. “I don’t even know how many points he scored. I know he made a 3. It’s not about that. We have lots of guys who can make 3s. It’s about the incredible defense, amazing awareness, intelligence, leadership.”
If Game 1 was a “true picture”, then I don’t know what Game 2 was.
A truer picture?
San Antonio matched the Warriors’ Game 1 level of defensive intensity in Game 2. Monday’s contest was a grind-it-out, slow-it-down, half-court game — a rock fight.
Iguodala, one of the savviest players in the league, fit right in.
Not only was Iguodala his typically stellar self on defense — seamlessly guarding all five positions (how many “point guards” do you trust to guard LaMarcus Aldridge?) — but against a Spurs team that dared him to make wideopen shots, he knocked down four 3-pointers Monday.
Late in the regular season, the veteran forward’s shot started to come around — he started to find his form — but Iguodala looked like a Splash Brother on Monday.
Kerr calls Iguodala a glue guy — someone who is capable of doing whatever the Warriors need on any given night — but that term almost seems insufficient.
Glue guys don’t win NBA Finals MVP awards, after all.
But Iguodala did fill all the Warriors’ gaps in Game 2. In addition to his 14 points and four 3-pointers (it needs to be stated again because it’s just that impressive), Iguodala had seven rebounds, and five assists in 28 minutes.
What more could you ask for? Better question: Where would the Warriors be in this series without Iguodala?
The free agent forward took meetings with a handful of teams — including the Kings and Rockets (could you imagine?) — but opted to return to Golden State on a three-year deal.
Was he seriously considering leaving?
“I’m getting at the age where I forget what happened last week. I’m forgetting my kid’s birthday — that’s when you know you’re getting old,” Iguodala, ever coy, said.
“Well, we met with them and we gave him our pitch and lots of money. We were hoping he wasn’t going to leave,” Kerr said. “No, I didn’t anticipate him leaving — he knows this is a great situation for him and we rewarded him for everything he’s done and what we think he can do for us. I think this year was a good example of that.”
And these last two games have been the best examples yet.