No Iguodala today, but he expects to be back
OAKLAND » The Warriors ruled out veteran Andre Iguodala for Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers because of continued issues with a left lateral leg contusion and bone bruise. Game 1 is today at Oracle Arena.
The Warriors evaluated Iguodala on Tuesday and determined he still has persisting pain accompanying the bone bruise and there is inflammation of the nerve surrounding his left knee. The Warriors plan to reevaluate him before Game 2 on Sunday at Oracle Arena.
Iguodala missed Games 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Western Conference finals against the Houston Rockets. He banged knees with Rockets guard James Harden at the end of the Warriors’ Game 3 win on May 20. Initially, the Warriors and Iguodala did not consider the injury serious. But he has not been able to run pain free. Still, the Warriors said in a release that Iguodala is “making progress,” and Iguodala expects to play in this series.
“I don’t have too much doubt,” Iguodala said Wednesday. “Based on how long it’s been from when it happened, I’m not that far away.”
• Jordan Bell’s season at Oregon ended last year when he failed to corral a rebound in the last seconds of a Final Four loss to North Carolina. Kevon Looney watched from the bench
last June as the Warriors won their second NBA title in three seasons.
From those humble vantage points, Bell and Looney are now poised to play substantial roles in the NBA Finals.
One of them probably will start at center, although neither had been given the official word.
“Steve changes his rotation a lot,” Looney said of Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “You just go with the flow and stay ready.”
Bell couldn’t be more ready.
“I’m used to being in moments like this at every level of my basketball career,” he
said. “Obviously, this is way bigger. I’m very excited for it.”
Both 6-foot-9 post players earned time primarily because of their defensive versatility. Especially with Iguodala out, the Warriors are relying on Bell and Looney to be able to guard post players but also jump out on switches.
“I saw a role I could play, which was switching out on screens on the defensive end, and crashing the boards on the offensive end, try to score around the basket,” Looney said.
• When Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue decided to take a leave of absence on March
17 because of health concerns, Kerr reached out to him with a phone call.
“I just tried to share some of my experience when I was out last year,” Kerr said. “The main message was you can’t allow what feels like the enormity of the job to interfere with your health and your recovery and whatever you need to do. I just told him the team will still be there when you get back.”
In mid-March, Lue, 41, said he had “chest pains and other troubling symptoms, compounded by a loss of sleep.” He returned in early April.
It was something Kerr could relate to. He missed the first 43 games of the 2015-16 season because of complications from back surgery. He also sat out the Warriors’ first 11 playoff games last year.
“Just hearing from Steve, and he’s been through something similar, it was great to hear him and talk to him and pick his brain about different circumstances,” Lue said. “So he was great.”
• Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith doesn’t even want to contemplate the horror of life without the chance to play in a fourth straight NBA Finals against the Warriors.
“I could be sitting in the Bahamas right about now, but I’m glad where we’re at,” he said, happy to postpone any offseason vacation plans. “Every time you play in the Finals it’s special.”
The Cavaliers are huge underdogs in the series. A survey of ESPN’s 23 NBA experts had every one of them picking the Warriors. Smith doesn’t argue the point. He hopes it provides the Cavaliers some edge that the Warriors haven’t faced them since a February trade that brought four new players to Cleveland.
Larry Nance Jr., Jordan Clarkson, Rodney Hood and George Hill were playing for other teams the last time these teams met.
“If that’s our advantage, I’ll take it. They haven’t seen us,” Smith said. “But obviously, they’re still going to come out and play the way they play.
• Former Warriors coach Mark Jackson lives between a rock and a hard place. As a broadcaster for ESPN, the network that will televise the NBA Finals, he can’t avoid questions about the team that fired him after back-to-back 50-win seasons and replaced him with Steve Kerr.
This week Jackson was asked if he, as a coach, would be concerned about the Warriors’ penchant for putting themselves in precarious positions. In Games 6 and 7 of the Western Conference finals against Houston, the Warriors fell behind by 15 points or more.
“I think you would be concerned about that,” Jackson said. “I’m sure Steve Kerr is preaching the same message; that they can’t continue to fall into these traps where they find themselves down at halftime to the point where they have to turn it on and play with a sense of urgency and climb back.
“What you don’t want is to continue to dig yourselves in those type of holes, because at some point, whether it be during that season or four seasons later, whenever, it’s going to get you. I think you would be concerned about that.”