WAKE-UP CALL?
Commentary: Warriors’ confidence is showing cracks but they need to refocus now
After going 16-1 in last year’s postseason — laying waste to the competition — the Warriors came into this season truly believing that they were head-and-shoulders above the competition.
Houston? Yeah, they’re good, but even after the Warriors lost to the Rockets (who won 65 regular-season games) in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, there was no sign that Golden State actually feared the West’s No. 1 seed.
Instead, the Warriors repeated the mantra that they repeated after so many of their losses this season: if we play good basketball, no one can beat us.
But after the Warriors lost Game 4 on Tuesday, it sounded like that confidence, which easily could have been construed as unflappable before the game tipped, had cracked.
Even if it was just a small crack, it’s notable.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr has of-
ten talked about his team needing to feel “appropriate fear” for games — a manufactured sense of danger that should, in theory, sharpen the abilities of a team that has shown an incredible propensity to coast in games against lesser opponents (i.e. everyone).
Well, a game after being blown out by 41 points, the Rockets have proven themselves to be anything but a lesser opponent, and the Warriors should no longer need to manufacture that fear.
For the first time since acquiring Kevin Durant, these Warriors are facing a real threat.
The final score of Game 4 wasn’t necessarily the thing that changed the Warriors’ tune. No, it was the Rockets’ impressive fight and the introduction of Chris Paul into this series
that has the Warriors’ attention and that earned the Warriors’ respect.
The Warriors landed two big blows in Game 4: A 12-0 run to start the game and a big, late third-quarter spurt to go up 10 heading into the fourth.
A lesser team would have likely folded under after the Warriors won the third quarter 34-17. In fact, every team that the Warriors beat by more than 10 points in the third quarter this year — Golden State was 30-0 in such games, including the playoffs. Make that 30-1.
It was the roundball edition of The Tortoise and the Hare. The Rockets, in this case, are the tortoise. They want to play a dragit-out game — hunting mismatches, attacking via isolation, working the shot clock. Their game didn’t change a bit from the opening tip to the final buzzer, and while it only netted 95 points on Tuesday, their physical defense made sure that was adequate.
The Warriors, on the other hand, were the hare. Excitable, prone for big bursts, but helter-skelter when things slowed down. They expended a ton of energy to jump to the early lead and the third-quarter lead, but didn’t have anything left in the tank for the fourth quarter, where they failed to execute most everything in their halfcourt offense.
But that’s just one game — two if you want to include Houston’s impressive Game 2 win. The Warriors are still absolutely in control of their own destiny, but the Game 4 loss and the questionable status of Andre Iguodala and Klay Thompson has cut into that notion of control.
Add in the fact that the Rockets will host the incredibly important Game 5 today — meaning they’re likely to get a boost from their crowd and the whistle — and you cut a bit deeper into that control.
Yes, this is a team that for the first time in two
seasons is feeling a clear and present danger. This makes Game 3 of last year’s NBA Finals look like a midseason game against the Jazz.
Think about it: When else has this team — with Durant in tow — been tested in a serious way? When there were real stakes attached?
Was Game 3 of this series the biggest game of the Warriors have played in the last two years? If so, Game 5 will supplant it.
Heading into that contest, the Warriors are likely to be shorthanded, they’ll be coming off a game where they were physically exhausted down the stretch, and they are going to be playing on the road.
This is a big test — it’s one the Warriors can’t afford to fail, either — and while they certainly have the talent to get the job done (even without Iguodala) they frankly don’t have much practice at this kind of thing.
This is a time where that
unbridled confidence — that hubris — would come in handy: rational or irrational, it always helps to have unfettered belief in a big moment.
After their embarrassing Game 3 loss, the Rockets were faced with the reality that if they wanted to make it to the NBA Finals, they’d have to win three of four against the Warriors. At the time, that sounded ludicrous.
Frankly, it’s still a bit farfetched.
But I said the same thing about the Cavaliers in their series against the Warriors in 2016. (And if you didn’t see the similarities between Game 7 of that series and Game 4 Tuesday, I can’t help you.)
The Rockets are now one-third of the way done. The Warriors can re-establish control tonight, but things look a little less farfetched now.
These Rockets aren’t messing around. It’s time for the Warriors to follow suit.