Draymond Green said a month ago the Warriors were going to win another championship this season.
There were a couple chuckles on the other end, but Green was serious. It was a fact. A matter of when, not if.
Games like Saturday, when Green reminds everyone who he and the Warriors are by bullying (the admittedly shorthanded) Nuggets in the playoffs, are the reason why he proclaimed another title with a stern face.
It’s why, despite the fact that he, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins had not played in a single lineup together this season, there was overwhelming confidence that it would work.
This has all been, and still is, projection; to envision what the Warriors are capable of. But the closer you get to finishing any puzzle, the more it becomes clear how things are supposed to fit together.
And with the Warriors’ puzzle, you knew the recipe involved Curry, Thompson and Green. With Wiggins the often quiet, but effective complement on both ends, it was really just a question of whether Poole would be that final, snug piece, given his deficiencies on the other side of the ball.
As it turns out, a guy who can score 30 points at will is a fairly snug fit, especially with Curry still working back from his foot sprain and Green marauding around the court to ensure there’s no thought of easing off the pedal defensively.
Now, to say that the Warriors are definitely going to win the NBA Finals at this stage is premature. The NBA playoffs are too long and frequently too injury-plagued to feel confident that any team will be at full strength two months from now.
But clearly, they’ve got the sauce.
On Saturday night, the 2022 version of the yet-to-be-named death lineup made that abundantly clear. That morbidly effective small ball lineup, with Green looking like he’s on the right side of 30 again, went on an 18-4 run towards the end of the second quarter, giving the Warriors a lead they never came close to relinquishing.
Nikola Jokic, who still got his 25 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists, had a difficult time getting into a rhythm, and took just two free throws. He averaged 6.3 a game this season. His teammates, shooting 31.4 percent from three, did little to aid him.
And even with Curry tiptoeing his way through this game, there was a moment watching that lineup where the thought seemed to cross everyone’s mind: “How is anyone going to stop this?”
How do you stop a lineup with Curry, Thompson, Poole, Wiggins and Green?
When Green is facilitating, screening and pushing the pace like he was on Saturday with three elite scorers to option the ball to, plus Wiggins showing up like he did as an excellent cutting option, it’s hard to fathom a way that any defense can stop that lineup.
When healthy, it’s a recipe that, even if it’s 5-to-10 minutes a game down the stretch, is enough to win the Warriors a championship.
The bench pieces, too, inspired confidence. There was the physical, energetic Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr., the crafty, surprisingly effective Nemanja Bjelica, and Andre Iguodala still picking pockets when he needed to.
That’s without Jonathan Kuminga getting any run outside of the final three garbage time minutes. It’s hard to believe he won’t make an impact at some point along this run.
Now, it’s not going to be this easy. It might not be this easy in a single other game in these playoffs.
There are better defensive teams out there, clearly. If a team like the Boston Celtics — who gave Golden State trouble earlier this season — gets Robert Williams back and meets the Warriors in the Finals, that could potentially pose a defensive threat capable of stopping them.
But that is a nebulous prospect that’s two months away, and no one other than the Nuggets have faced this lineup. Regardless of how good any opposing defense is, it’s a five-man group that has the firepower and flexibility to cut through any lineup.
The bona fides are there. The defensive effort is back. The offensive intelligence and fluidity is crescendoing. There is a real, evident energy and suggestion that the Warriors could ride this to another title.
But Curry put the breaks on for a moment after the game, at least to provide some perspective before we all go drink the Kool-Aid.
He made a point, even after experiencing the high of him returning to the court for the first playoff victory in the still-pristine Chase Center, that this isn’t the dynasty squad. However brilliant they looked, it’s still an unproven group.
“There’s a good energy and a good belief in what we’re doing and that we can be that team and it’s not just talk,” Curry said. “But at the same time, this team hasn’t done it yet, so we can’t get too ahead of ourselves.”
The foundation of this team is still there. Underneath the fresh coat of Chase Center paint, you can see the solid bones of that core. But memories aren’t worth all that much, and it’s why Saturday, as optimism-inducing as it was, was still just a glimpse of what could be. It needs to be repeated.
This isn’t the team from before or during Kevin Durant. This is something entirely different. That’s also why it’s so exciting, perplexing and uncertain.
There was a certainty during that old run. You knew the Warriors were going to the Finals and probably going to win them. They did that for five-straight years.
After two years of falling face-first off that pedestal, Golden State has climbed its way back. The belief is there. But it’s still a maddeningly long way from the first win in the first round to the final win in the Finals.
This team is clearly capable of reaching that pinnacle again, but as Curry acknowledged, it’s missing that old, deep feeling of inevitability. But as Saturday highlighted, even if the Warriors never recover that same air of invincibility, that won’t stop them from winning another title.
