Warriors Record-Setting Streak Seems Far from over and Other Saturday Takeaways
A year ago, off-games for Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson on the same day could’ve easily spelled certain doom for the Golden State Warriors. Call it a simple math of splash minus flash equals crash.
This season, all that subtraction's meant is someone else stepping up. It was Draymond Green’s turn to add that flash Saturday night.
Behind Green’s career-high 31 points (on 11-of-20 shooting, including 7-of-13 from distance—also a personal best), Golden State notched a club record 12th straight win, dispatching the Chicago Bulls 112-102 in a game that at times had the feel of a very real, albeit very early, NBA coronation.
It was far from the only superlative the visitors reached.
Time and again, the Bulls—buoyed throughout by Jimmy Butler (24 points on 8-of-17 from the floor) and Pau Gasol (22 point and a whopping 20 boards)—made their charge. But time and again, the Warriors answered, just as they have throughout their scintillating 17-2 start to the season—also a franchise best.
More often than not, that answer donned No. 23.
Not that Thompson and Curry disappeared completely—the Dubs needed every one of their 43 combined points. But on a night when the two’s trademark efficiency was lacking (they finished 14-of-37 from the floor), it was Green—by now one of the league’s worst-kept secrets—who kept Golden State ticking.
Entering Saturday’s showdown, there was a lingering sense that the Warriors’ feat may have been a bit inflated. Specifically, exactly zero of the team’s previous 11 wins had come against foes currently .500 or better.
Rather, it’s how they’ve looked in victory—decisive, dominating, devastating—that makes Golden State’s star liable to rise higher still.
To be sure, the slate is about to get a bit tougher and includes dates with the Dallas Mavericks, a full-strength Oklahoma Thunder and a Christmas showdown with heated rivals the Los Angeles Clippers.
The way the Warriors are playing now, though, 21 straight doesn't sound so insane.
Dating back to the season’s start, the Warriors have registered the league’s highest plus-minus (plus-10.9), along with its best net rating (plus-12.6, nearly four points ahead of the second-ranked Dallas Mavericks), best defensive rating (95.1) and fourth-best offensive rating (107.6), according to NBA.com (media stats require subscription).
Curry and Thompson very much remain Golden State’s psychic center; Andrew Bogut its anchor; Andre Iguodala its sixth-man sparkplug; Harrison Barnes its uber-talented X-factor; Draymond Green its five-tool glue guy. It is a team whose roles are clearly defined as the talents are broad—a hardwood hellion with more heads than there are swords to sever them.
The man behind the monster? That would be first-year coach Steve Kerr, who has managed to cast Mark Jackson’s abandoned beast squarely in his own image: a bit of Phil Jackson’s triangle offense, sure, but varied and vibrant enough to change on a dime.
After years spent gazing from the sidelines—as general manager of the Phoenix Suns and, perhaps more famously, a TNT color analyst—Kerr is making sure to enjoy every moment of his maiden coaching voyage. From an earlier interview with USA Today (via the Daily Herald’s Mike McGraw):
"I love feeling this way. I love the competition. I love being part of the group. I love trying to build something together. The intensity, you can't even come close to matching.
On TV, you're talking about what somebody else is doing. Now we're talking about what we're doing. So we're in the fight, and that's what makes it fun.
"
Kerr’s hoops honeymoon won’t last forever. Such is the burden borne by the hunted—becoming the ones to bear the bull’s-eyes on their backs.
As a testament to how a slight shift in coaching perspective can completely alter a team’s trajectory, however, Kerr’s is a career teeming for a towering arc of its own.
Curry and Thompson remain the two tasked with taking him there. But as Green once again proved, Kerr is one rookie with no shortage of helping hands to carry the bags.
Saturday's Takeaways:
What Are We, Chopped Clipper?
Oh right, so there’s another team out in California that’s apparently pretty good. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Los Angeles Clippers. They’re fast, they’re furious and they don’t much care for “fog-eating Northerners.”
The Clippers rolled once again Saturday, throttling Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans 120-100.
For his part, Davis finished with one of the quietest 26-and-threes (as in a measly three rebounds) you'll ever see. Instead, it was Blake Griffin—once a Davis-esque darling, now somehow confined to a career of quietly bludgeoning pretty much every other power forward in the league—who stole the whole darned power forward show.
To wit: 30 points (on 10-of-15 shooting) to go along with seven boards and five dimes. That, as the kid’s say, is quite crisp. I’m sure some kid has said that.
The win was L.A.’s seventh straight, keeping them to within a scant three games of the hated Warriors atop the Pacific Division.
Did we say hated? We meant despised.
No Really, Who's Robert Covington?
A cynical fan might look at the Philadelphia 76ers levying heavy minutes on undrafted rookie Robert Covington (Who?) as a way of—how should we say this?—further solidifying their position in regards to future assets.
Or you could say he’s the greatest good-luck charm in NBA history and be 100 percent correct.
For the third straight game, Covington (Seriously, who?) was superb for the Sixers, finishing with 25 points (on 9-of-14 shooting, including 3-of-5 from distance) in a 108-101 overtime win over the hapless Detroit Pistons. It marks the third straight game that the undrafted second-year man out of Tennessee State (Who?) logged more than 20 minutes while notching north of 17 points.
As it turns out, Covington (OK, OK, he’s a player) actually had a cup of coffee with the Houston Rockets a season ago, notching 16 points in seven spot-minute appearances between stints with the D-League’s Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
Chalk it all up to Philly’s risky (some might call it galling) strategy of loading up on young or otherwise unproven players in a creative (some might call it futile) attempt to hammer out an actual strategic foundation.
Or not. You can chalk it up to blindly throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. That’s what we’re doing.
Marco YOLO
So you’ve probably noticed that the San Antonio Spurs haven’t packed quite the punch of years past—at least not yet. Finals fatigue, responsible minutes management, etc. Chalk it up to what you will.
Case in point: Marco Belinelli, who has been particularly disappointing following the best, fits-like-a-glove season of his eight-year NBA career.
Consider the schneid officially gotten off of.
Belinelli’s importance cannot be overstated. Though his playing time has always been on a bit of a yo-yo string, his shooting and passing became indispensible during San Antonio’s now-storied Finals run a season ago.
The Spurs are never far from finding fifth gear. So long as the team’s depth can continue to be cultivated, though, springtime might find us once again wondering where the trailing dust came from.
Don’t Call Me Rook
Speaking of gruesome-years-turned-temporarily-good, get a load of Michael Carter-Williams!
Following a rough first month, the league’s reigning Rookie of the Year tallied his fourth-straight near-triple double in the Sixers’ win over the Pistons. The final line: 20 points, eight rebounds and 15 assists.
It’s been a little over a week since MCW's first true breakout performance of the season—an 18-point, 10-rebound, 16-assist humdinger (in a loss to the Dallas Mavericks) that, while not exactly crisp (he shot just 4-of-13), displayed the kind of five-tool zeal we’d come to expect from the 6’6” point guard last year.
That’s two wins in the last three games, for those counting at home. You’re probably not. You have better things to count. Say, how many smoke detectors you have in your domicile. Gotta be up to code.
Anyway, it’s good to have you back, MCW. Your brand of silver-lining-on-a-cloud-of-tear-gas was sorely missed.
Yeah, No Kidding
Brandon Jennings wants you to know it wasn't your fault when he pulled up for this 16-footer and—with the nearest defender a five-day’s drive away—sent the ball sailing straight into a Palace of Auburn Hills utility closet.
My bad! He actually-in-real-life said that!
“Guys, seriously, don’t worry about that. You didn’t do anything wrong. Look at me, Josh Smith. Josh, look at me!...It’s not your fault. No, Josh…It’s not your fault…It’s not your fault…It’s not your fault.”
Way to keep it 100, Brandon. Or, you know, 27. Close enough, right?
(Tip of the hat to @Bballforeverfb for passing this digital gem along.)
All stats courtesy of NBA.com and current as of December 5, unless otherwise noted.
