Notebook:
Center says he’s ready after being sidelined by injured right heel
Zaza Pachulia on track for Game 1 in Finals.
OAKLAND — Zaza Pachulia, who missed the last two games of the San Antonio series because of a sore right heel, is on track to start Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday.
Pachulia practiced without restriction Saturday for the third day in a row.
“We’ve done running, had scrimmages and he’s done everything,” acting head coach Mike Brown said.
Although he is the least impactful of Golden State’s five starters, the other four being All-Stars, Pachulia is the first wave of a center by committee rotation, averaging 18 minutes per game this season.
And he was key to the Warriors victory over Cleveland in January. He had 13 rebounds in his 21 minutes, while also helping hold Tristan Thompson to only two offensive rebounds and five total in his 30 minutes.
There’s a chance this Warriors-Cavaliers series will morph into a small-ball spectacle. If Cleveland chooses to attack with spread shooters and Kevin Love as their backup center, the Warriors might counter by stripping the center from their lineup.
But for now, Pachulia is expected to play his typical 15-20 minutes and he expects to be ready.
“It’s good that we have one week off,” Pachulia said. “That way I can prepare myself mentally and physically for this team.”
Andre Iguodala, quiet n for most of the playoffs, now becomes vital for the Warriors.
Iguodala has always been one of the league’s most capable defenders on LeBron James, making life more difficult than usual for the megastar. Iguodala will guard James at key moments of this series, just as he did two years ago when he was named Finals MVP.
Last year, Iguodala was hampered in the Finals by a back problem. It was an untold factor in the Warriors collapse from a 3-1 lead.
His health will be a storyline to follow as this year’s series unfolds. Iguodala, 33, missed the second half of Game 1 of the West Finals with a sore left knee and sat out Game 2 for precautionary reasons.
He returned for the final two games of the series, not having a huge impact but showing a ray of hope toward the end of Game 4, springing up for a semiexplosive dunk and a few layups.
The sequence was encouraging for the Warriors to see because Iguodala’s importance is about to take a giant step up.
“I feel good,” Iguodala said after practice on Saturday. “Right now, you have to block out everything.”
Back in 2015, when he won that Finals MVP, along with great defense, Iguodala also averaged 16.3 points in the series, making 14 of his 35 threes. With the addition of Kevin Durant, his offense isn’t needed nearly as much.
But against the Cavaliers — especially if the Warriors decide to go small and Cleveland leaves a big man on Iguodala — he must occasionally make them pay with a 3. That’s something he hasn’t done in the playoffs, making only 3 of his 27 threes in 11 games.
The Cavaliers had n their first pre-Finals practice on Saturday in Cleveland.
After it, Kevin Love was asked about his Cavaliers flipping from massive favorites in the East to sudden underdogs against the Warriors, despite entering the series the healthy defending champs.
“The whole underdog thing is funny to me,” Love told reporters. “At the end of the day we are defending our title. We’re trying to repeat which is so hard to do. I think we will use it as fuel. We’ll use it as motivation ... I don’t think we’re underdogs. I think we match up well with them and I think they’d say the same about us.”