With or without Cousins, team is far from boring
We got your Boogie Bailout right here, said the Warriors on Sunday evening with their fun-fun-fun 119-114 win at Dallas.
The big buzz around the Warriors the past couple of weeks has been the approaching debut of DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins, scheduled to play his first game with the Warriors on Friday night in Los Angeles against the Clippers.
A lot of the buzz has been about how Cousins will fix what ails the Warriors.
They’ve been out of sync, they’ve been getting their hat handed to them by opposing big men, and they need help.
They need a Boogie Bailout. Like the old Mighty Mouse theme song: Here I come to save the day!
There is something to that. The Warriors have been easy pickins for big men, who have free-roaming privileges in the paint against the puny Warriors. On Sunday, Dallas center DeAndre Jordan had 13 points and 14 rebounds, seven of them offensive.
Although the Warriors are really looking forward to having Cousins shore up the center position, they don’t want to look desperate. When you take your girlfriend to the beach and you want to impress her, you don’t want the lifeguard to pull you out of the rough surf.
The Warriors want Cousins to be their helper, not their savior.
That gave Sunday’s game, and the next two — Tuesday in Denver and Wednesday back home against New Orleans — some importance to the Warriors. Forget about how they might look to the outside world if they stagger into the Boogie Era, it’s a matter of self-esteem.
I think that’s partly what head coach Steve Kerr was saying when he was asked recently about how the team would adjust to Cousins. Kerr said it was more about Cousins adjusting to the team.
It’s like, You do know we won the past two NBA championships, right?
The Warriors’ recent minislump, and the long-awaited unveiling of Cousins in a Golden State uniform, seem to have put some pep in the Warriors’ step.
That was a nice win Sunday, against a team that has a better home record than do the Warriors, and has the league’s hottest rookie, Luka Doncic. It was another example of how the rest of the league has taken down the white flag while playing the Warriors.
The Warriors were down by five inside four minutes and pulled it out, thanks to Stephen Curry’s shooting and some gritty team defense.
Remember when the Warriors would have been almost embarrassed to need a thrilling comeback and last-minute theatrics to pull out a win over the Mavericks? On Sunday, it was exciting, and cool.
Curry scored 48 points, 33 of ’em on 3-pointers, and guess what? He might have shot himself back into the MVP picture. James Harden put himself into the lead in that horse race with his recent scoring binge, leading the Rockets on an impressive run, but the season is relatively young.
Harden probably will win the scoring title. He’s at 34.2 points per game, to Curry’s 29.4, but when it comes time to vote, it will be hard to ignore the league’s most electric player on a team that’s shooting for a three-peat.
For Curry, the MVP is a team award, and it’s the same deal for Draymond Green. He has not been up to his lofty standards on defense, mostly because of injuries, but he seems healthy now and would like to make a run at another Defensive Player of the Year Award. That’s a long shot, but so is Green’s career.
Meanwhile, as the Warriors seem to be finding their groove, the rest of the league is pondering the absurdity of the potential of the Warriors, if Cousins proves to be at least, say, 75 percent of his old self.
What if he’s in a great frame of mind, with his spirits energized by being accepted by such a great bunch of fellows, tuned to what might happen to his game and his legacy when he’s surrounded by stupendous team players?
The Warriors hope that will happen, that Cousins is healthy and happy enough to lift the team to a ridiculous level. But they don’t want to wait to find out. They want to show the world that they’re a pretty good squad even without a real center and not much of a bench.
Cousins’ first game with the Warriors is creating a nervous anticipation, like the first day at a new school, for him and his teammates and for everyone watching.
The Warriors, as they have been doing in different ways for the past five years, have taken the boring out of basketball.