Warriors bursting with freshness
Playoff sweeps, home dates galore, spreadout minutes have put team in happy place
OAKLAND — A decade ago, Mike Brown and his young Cleveland Cavaliers arrived at the 2007 NBA Finals — soon to get swept by the Spurs — in awe. It was a new experience for almost everyone in the organization.
“We had three guys walking around with camcorders (at the first practice),” Brown said. “I was like: ‘Woah, woah, we got to at least act like we’ve been here.’”
A decade later, Brown’s inherited Warriors roster is loaded with veterans in a far different, more comfortable place as they patiently wait nine days for the familiar bright lights. They’re experienced and relaxed, but also uniquely rested at the end of what is typically a nine-month gauntlet, but has instead felt like half-work, half-
vacation the past 60 days.
This goes back to the end of the regular season. The Warriors played 11 of their final 16 games at home, including six of their last seven. Since March 30, they’ve only made four road trips, all single-city stops in Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City and San Antonio before a quick return.
By the time they leave for Cleveland for Game 3 of The Finals, it’ll be the first time they’ve stepped foot in the Eastern Time Zone in 94 days and they’ll have spent only 13 of the prior 68 days outside the Bay Area.
Also: There haven’t been a ton of work nights mixed into it. From March 30 through May 31, the day before The Finals begin, they’ll have played only 19 games in 63 days — an uncommon NBA ratio — which includes a lowstress, late-season stretch where they’d already clinched the top seed and rested their stars at least one game each. That’s far different from the year before, when they chased 73 wins to the finish line.
So what’ve they done during those 44 days off? Enjoyed the weather, which, combined with winning (an 18-1 record during this stretch), has a way of brightening days and motivating people. In all but four of the past 54 days, the Warriors have lounged in a city that’s weather was sitting in the 60s, 70s or 80s.
A week before the Warriors arrived in Salt Lake City, it was near freezing. But when they were there, it was sunny and 80 degrees.
While the Warriors were in the typically scorching San Antonio, it was moderate, only climbing into the low 90s once. The coldest weather they’ve faced was during two of their four days in Portland, when it dipped into the high 50s.
“It just puts me in a great mood to come to the gym every day, get my work in, go home and enjoy the outdoors,” Thompson said. “The Bay Area is beautiful.”
Nobody’s going to care about their relaxing couple months if the Cavaliers come into Oracle and rattle them in the first half of Game 1. But if this Finals turns out to be a dogfight, that’s where the lack of usage, particularly in highleverage situations, could benefit the Warriors.
They didn’t have a player in the top-27 in min- utes per game this season. Klay Thompson led the team at 34.0 per game. Meanwhile, LeBron James led the entire league, averaging 37.8 per game.
That gap has only widened in the playoffs. Entering Thursday, LeBron’s averaging 41.4 minutes per playoff game, while every Warrior has been held to 34.7 per game or below.
Add to that the minimum amount of games to make The Finals — 12 wins, three sweeps — and the Warriors’ minute totals are astonishingly low.
Last season, Draymond Green had already logged 639 minutes heading into the NBA Finals, needing to play 40 or more in six separate games. This season, he’s only logged 416 playoff minutes to this point, going over 40 only once (and, oh yeah, last year he had three flagrant points, while this year he enters with zero).
Thompson, similar story: 603 minutes heading into The Finals last year, 413 this year. Stephen Curry’s totals are skewed since he missed six playoff games last year. But his minutes in the conference finals tell the arduous tale: 257 on a hobbled knee last year, 138 on a healthy knee this year.
Kevin Durant’s totals may paint the clearest picture about how light this playoff run to the sport’s biggest stage has been. For years, Durant has operated as a high-usage NBA star trying to will his Thunder franchise toward glory.
Last season, he logged 734 minutes through the conference finals. Two playoffs before that, he logged 815 minutes through the conference finals, averaging 42.9 in 19 games. One year, earlier in his career, he averaged 44.1 minutes in the playoffs.
But this year, after averaging a career-low minutes during the regular season, he’s only played 334 minutes through the conference finals — less than half of his previous two playoff runs — averaging 33.4 per game and even sitting out two of the 12 games with a very minor calf twinge because, well, the Warriors wanted to save that juice for now.
“Still got nicks and bruises from playing a physical game,” Durant said. “But I feel good.”
Which gives the Warriors an extra Finals wild card, if needed, that they’ve yet to play. If the Cavaliers come into Oracle and handle a rusty Warriors team in Game 1 and push them to the limit again in this series, Brown has been given the go-ahead to amp up the minutes of his megastars without fear of the typical accumulation wearing them down.
“We feel like we can increase our guys minutes if we need to because they haven’t had to log big minutes the entire year,” Brown said.
That could be a Finals factor.