Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Time to heal for Warriors
And now, they wait. Again.
The Warriors have gotten used to going to the NBA Finals, and their win in Portland on Monday night clinched their fifth consecutive trip. They’ve also gotten used to waiting for those finals to begin, with long layoffs after the Western Conference finals becoming their norm.
By the time Game 1 of the NBA Finals arrives in either Milwaukee or Toronto on May 30, it’ll be a 10-day gap between games for the Warriors. It’s not the longest in NBA history, but it matches the length of the break that the Warriors handled in 2017, and this marks the third time in this five-year run that they’ve had at least a week off.
“Happy to get a little rest before we have to play again,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
The Warriors clinched the series in Portland without Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins and Andre Iguodala — all sidelined by injuries. There’s no way of knowing yet if Durant and Cousins will be back in time for the finals, either. Plenty of other Warriors are dealing with bumps and bruises as well.
Accruing rust is always a major concern during days without games, but the Warriors surely feel the obvious advantage — rest — outweighs any drawbacks right now — especially after they were stretched to seven games by Houston last year in the West finals and only had two days off before the NBA Finals.
“We definitely want to get our guys healthy,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said. “We need to get Andre back healthy, DeMarcus and Kevin. We need those guys going into the finals.”
Down by 17 with less than two minutes to play in the third quarter at Portland, the easiest thing for the Warriors would have been to let off the gas and try to clinch the series at Oracle Arena on Wednesday night.
Instead, they turned a 95-78 deficit into a 119-117 overtime win — outscoring the Blazers 41-22 in the game’s final 19 minutes.
“We could have said Game 5 was our game,” Warriors star Stephen Curry said. “But we saw how long that break was going to be and we wanted to take advantage of it.”