OAKLAND — The Warriors were as loose as ever Tuesday at their Oakland Marriott practice facility.
Steph Curry was playing kickball with assistant coaches after his shooting drills, Steve Kerr was getting ready to tape a podcast with Bill Simmons. Newcomer Briante Weber said this is the most at ease basketball team he’s ever been around.
And why wouldn’t they be? Golden State’s 43-8 record is best in the NBA by four games. The team is first in offensive and defensive efficiency and is sending four players to the All-Star game.
There have been a few minor hiccups with crunchtime scoring. The injury bug has slightly bitten Kerr’s roster — both David West (thumb) and Zaza Pachulia (shoulder) will miss tomorrow’s home game against the Chicago Bulls.
Here are other “narratives” as Curry likes to put it, to know.
1. Nobody had any problem with Draymond Green’s shouting match with Kevin Durant from Saturday in Sacramento
Emotions were running high last Saturday in Sacramento, where Steve Kerr was ejected and the Warriors lost a heartbreaker to the Kings.
A video of Green and Durant surfaced hours after the game with the pair of All-Stars going back-and-forth for about 20 seconds. It’s not the first time the two have gotten into it on the court this season. And it won’t be the last. Let’s give the leaders of the team the floor to explain.
“I equate it if you have a lot of siblings,” Kerr said. “You’re in the house together every day. You love each other, you’d do anything for each other, but you are going to get into fights. That’s what it’s like to be on a team.
“Nobody takes anything personally,” Curry said. “Nobody goes home and cries about it.”
Are the Warriors equipped to handle these types of situations?
“If you can’t, you’re probably on a losing team,” Green said. “But everyone who makes a big deal out of it are probably losers. That’s how I view it. Anyone who knows anything about winning know that that’s going to happen.
“If you’ve got to hide something from one of your teammates, and you can’t say something to somebody, you’re in a bad situation. And me personally, I don’t want to be in that situation. If you’re on a team where you can’t talk? Where there’s moments you need to yell at each other, maybe that yelling is to get each other going… So if there is a team like that, please make sure I’m on the first thing smoking out of there. Because that team ain’t for me.”
2. A lack of losing streaks has helped contribute to the Warriors’ strong team chemistry
The Warriors have not lost back-to-back regular season games since April of 2015 and Kerr told reporters the main reason why: We have the talent to win when we still have an off night.
“It’s really a remarkable streak,” Kerr said. “I don’t know how much longer it’s going to last. I’m not trying to jinx us, but it’s an incredible feat.”
Kerr attributes the team chemistry to the high character guys and competitiveness in the locker room, but he agreed the lack of losing the last three seasons is a forefront reason why this team is so tight.
Curry is truly the lone Warrior player left on the roster who remembers 50 loss seasons and long stretches without a win. The Warriors lost 155 games in Curry’s first three seasons. He hasn’t lost appreciation for those lowly times, where the Warriors had bi-weekly team meetings to try and figure out how to win a game.
“It was hard,” Curry said. “Obviously you come from a winning high school team, a winning college team, you don’t really know what losing streaks are like. Then you get up here and you don’t want it to become the norm. You don’t want it to be just another day, oh, we lost. You don’t ever want to go out like that, although in the league, in certain situations it’s really hard to get wins… It definitely makes you appreciate what we’re talking about now — losing two in a row or why did y’all only win by five.”
3. The anticipation for Saturday’s showdown in OKC is already building
Curry can’t imagine the emotions Durant will have Saturday night on ABC, as Thunder fans welcome him — or boo –him back to Oklahoma City.
Curry gave one of the longer answers you’ll generally here him give on the subject of how Durant will feel as he walks into Chesapeake Energy Arena.
“He left a lot of blood, sweat and tears there in OKC for a long time,” Curry said. “That becomes a part of who you are. You need to know he’s with us and has moved onto the next chapter. The is probably the first time (inaudible) he’ll have familiar smells, sights in the arena, all that kind of stuff. Hopefully once the game starts he can lock in and be himself and I’m sure he will. I don’t know how the fans will react but that doesn’t matter. It’s more you appreciate what he built there. So that’s special. Anybody in this league that can be the face of a franchise for so long, to represent and be an inspiration for so many people, for so many years, you hope people appreciate that from the decision he made this summer. That’s the biggest thing. It’s sports. So (the fan reaction) is probably going to go both ways, and that’s okay. But for him to be able to appreciate what they accomplished there. He grew up there, pretty much into a man.”
4. JaVale McGee is practicing his range from three-point land
JaVale McGee banging home threes today at practice pic.twitter.com/PW0nVDjqGe
— Kevin Jones (@Mr_KevinJones) February 7, 2017
5. Kerr explains why Patrick McCaw has been seeing more minutes than Ian Clark
Clark was a healthy scratch Saturday against the Kings, while McCaw logged 9 minutes. What’s exactly going on here?
“The last two weeks, we’ve been going to McCaw, trying to help his development,” Kerr said. “Ian will absolutely play and be back in the rotation at some point. I want both of them to be ready for the playoffs, because a lot can depend on matchups. And we’re going to need different things against different opponents. And they’re both very capable in helping us. But it’s hard to play 11 guys. We already played 10 which was difficult. So if I’m playing one of them, it’s going to be tough to play the other.”
