Kevin Durant’s incredible streak of scoring 20 or more points in consecutive games was finally snapped at 72 in last night’s 125-101 beatdown of the Denver Nuggets. Durant was two points away from breaking Michael Jordan’s record after tying it in the previous game, but Warriors head coach Steve Kerr elected to pull his new superstar with just under six minutes remaining.
Kerr’s decision to do so was a reasonable one for sure, especially considering Durant took a hard fall while attempting to force a scoring opportunity in garbage time. The idea of Durant suffering a serious injury with the game already in the bag, in the season’s third week, for the sake of breaking a record, would have been a disastrous scenario.
But Kerr’s pulling of Durant was also a clear indicator of how the Warriors are going to approach this season, with the prioritizing of the team’s long term goals over short term statistical achievements now an apparent point of emphasis.
That wasn’t always the case last season. The Warriors tried to have their cake and eat it too during their magical run in 2015-16, and nearly pulled it off. But even if you don’t believe that the chase for 73 wins hindered Golden State’s title chances, it’s hard to deny that statistical achievements, at times, seemed to take precedence over the ultimate goal.
“I knew about it, I knew about the streak, and I told him that when he came off the floor, but I’m not gonna mess with the basketball gods.” Kerr told reporters after the game. “If you wanna leave some guy out there to get some kind of record you’re asking for an injury. The game called for him to come out, he came out, he had no problem with it.”
Besides the chase for 73, last season’s most notable instance of stat chasing backfiring took place in a January game against the Philadelphia 76ers, when Draymond Green was the primary culprit in a disastrous third quarter that allowed Philadelphia to get back in the game. This was due in large part to Green chasing a triple-double, something he ultimately copped to.
“I was chasing a triple-double,” Green said. “Coach came to me at halftime like, ‘You better get it in this third quarter, ’cause you ain’t playing in the fourth,’ and it was all downhill from there.”
The consequences proved to be minor – the Warriors ended up winning what was ultimately a meaningless game – but the incident goes down as a reminder of how the desire for statistical achievements can cloud both perspective and judgement. Kerr is not going to let that happen this season.
“I think there’s gonna be a lot of that stuff this year,” Kerr continued “There’s gonna be people talking about stats and records and who’s scoring and who’s not, and he only way this is going to work is if guys kind’ve throw that out the window and that’s exactly what KD said. He said coach ‘I don’t care. It’s no big deal.’ You know Steph lost his three point streak the other night, KD lost whatever this streak was. None of it matters and our guys know that. It’s about winning and playing as a team.”
At this point, all that matters to Durant and the Warriors is winning a title this season. That’s ultimately why KD made the move to Golden State after all. While few would deny that was also the ultimate goal for the Warriors last year, so was winning 73 games. This time around, everything else is being thrown out the window.
“It really didn’t mean a thing to me, to be honest,” Durant said after the game. “I think it was cool for the fans to see, I guess. But for me, I was going out there doing what I was supposed to do. I shot 16 times tonight and that’s on me. I’ve got to make more shots if I want to keep that thing going.”
“It was cool while it lasted, it was fun and up there with some great names, but like I said, I’ve got bigger goals in mind.”
