Brown’s steady hand helped Warriors somehow prevail

SAN FRANCISCO — Never a doubt, right?

The Warriors took their first lead in Monday night’s Game 4 with 47.5 seconds to play, put the game away thanks to Stephen Curry free throws, and grabbed a 3-1 lead in their Western Conference semifinals series with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Anyone panicking while the Warriors were playing their ugliest playoff game in recent memory forgot about the Mike Brown factor.

Brown — who found out about 75 minutes before the game that he would be coaching instead of Steve Kerr — is undefeated in the playoffs as the Warriors’ interim head coach, now 12-0. That could bode well if he has to coach Game 5 in Memphis on Wednesday, as seems all but certain.

“At this point in the year, you want to win ballgames,” Brown said after the emotional and ugly 101-98 win. “It doesn’t matter how you get there. We found a way to win tonight.”

Brown was back in the coaching seat and knew what to do. The Warriors were in a tight game in the playoffs and knew what to do.

They waited out the young Grizzlies, played defense, and never lost confidence.

“I had a feeling we were going to win,” Klay Thompson said.

They found a way but, oh, it was ugly. Not ugly like the physical, bruising ball we’d seen earlier in the series. No this was just plain ugly. Like Sacramento Kings ugly.

Charles Barkley joked at halftime that “if Mike Brown loses this game, he’s gonna get fired by the Sacramento Kings.” Ouch.

Brown was officially named the new coach of the Kings on Monday morning, so he had some things on his mind. But then a little more than an hour before Game 4, the Warriors announced that Kerr had tested positive for the coronavirus and that Brown would coach the game.

From assistant coach on Sunday to head coach of two teams on Monday.

“It was a very interesting day for me,” Brown said.

Brown’s calm, understated presence brought back memories of 2017. During that title run, Kerr was sidelined with back problems and headaches, the same issues that plagued him a season earlier when Luke Walton stepped in for him.

In the Warriors’ first playoffs with Kevin Durant, Brown took over in the third game of the first-round series against Portland and coached 11 straight games. Eleven straight wins. He coached two wins in Portland, a sweep of Utah, a sweep of the Spurs and a Game 1 Finals win against Cleveland. Then Kerr came back, coached the Warriors’ only loss of that postseason in Game 4, but oversaw the Warriors’ second championship in three years.

Brown’s presence and ability to seamlessly step into the head seat is a testament to the Warriors’ continuity. Still, it was big news to receive shortly before tip-off.

“There were butterflies,” Brown said. “It’s a big game. You have to switch gears.”

We knew why the Grizzlies looked so disjointed. They had a great excuse: they were missing Ja Morant, their star and catalyst who missed the game with a knee injury. The Grizzlies announced Tuesday that Morant has a bone bruise and is unlikely to return this postseason.

The Warriors? They didn’t have a reason as dramatic as missing their superstar player, but it had been a rocky lead-up to Game 4. First came the news that longtime assistant Brown was leaving. Then, in the morning, Draymond Green learned that his Michigan State teammate and friend Adreian Payne had been killed. And then Kerr was scratched.

“Our leader Steve being out with COVID, and Draymond is our emotional leader, he’s our heart and soul,” Brown said. “And for him to get something that impactful, it was tough for him, and we all felt it.”

The Warriors have started slowly in every game this series, but Monday’s game was almost unwatchable. Both teams shot poorly. The Warriors missed their first 15 3pointers. They turned the ball over like crazy, played sloppy and unfocused.

But they stayed close and felt confident. Brown said Green and the sidelined Andre Iguodala were huge influences on the bench and floor.

“Just their calmness, knowing that it’s a long basketball game,” Brown said. “There’s no need to panic. Move the ball a little bit better. Get a stop here, a box-out there . ... You know, just little reminders of the things that we’ve been talking about the whole series.

“To have veterans like Andre and Draymond who have been through the highs and lows of many playoff series, when they’re reassuring guys it gives everybody else confidence.”