© Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Regardless of your opinion on Sacramento’s geography, Sunday provided a fun night of Bay Area basketball with the Warriors hosting the Kings and their fans for the second time. It was a relentless pace and the Warriors squeaked by with a 117-113 win.
Adjusted rotations, but Curry struggles late
Steve Kerr is often a stickler with the Warriors’ rotations, leaving Stephen Curry out of the fourth quarter until there are almost exactly six minutes remaining. It’s very NBA 2K franchise mode-like and can be maddening at times when it’s clear Golden State needs Curry back in the game sooner than usual. But it’s about preserving Curry, so the logic is at least sound.
But on Sunday, Kerr broke from that obsession with rotations, putting Curry back in the game with about seven-and-a-half minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.
That provided a rare Curry and Jordan Poole lineup for a couple of minutes, which was pretty ugly to watch, though maybe not the fault of the lineup. The Warriors simply played sloppy, reckless basketball at that point, which was kind of a theme. They turned the ball over 10 times in the first half and 17 in total.
It happened in the final seconds, too. Curry had a double-dribble turnover with about 45 seconds left and then seconds later turned the ball over after he was trapped in his own half, only to be bailed out by Buddy Hield fumbling the ball out of bounds, on what should have been an easy go-ahead layup. And to add insult to injury, Curry missed three free throws, including a couple down the stretch which would have given the Warriors a four-point, instead of two-point lead.
Sometimes, it pays to be lucky; a rare statement for this mostly luck-devoid Warriors team.
Crunch time clutch… on the boards?
One of the ways the Warriors won this game, despite a combined 72 points from Harrison Barnes, Tyre Halliburton and Buddy Hield, was offensive rebounding. That’s extremely odd for this team, one of the worst rebounding teams in the league, and on a night when Kevon Looney struggled for the most part. Looney did finish with 8 rebounds, though at least three of them came on this nonsensical sequence:
If at first you don’t succeed, try try try try try try again ? pic.twitter.com/ZiKjHAkFCp
— KNBR (@KNBR) April 26, 2021
Golden State out-rebounded the Kings 16-to-6, with 16 second-chance point, one off their season-high of 17. Much of that, aside from that hilarious Looney sequence (he had a team-high five offensive boards), can be owed to Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre, who both had four offensive rebounds each. In a game that was a mess, it was that sort of scrapping that put them over the edge.
As a team, they out-rebounded Sacramento 52-to-38, with Draymond Green leading the way (8 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists), followed by Looney’s 8 and and 8, Oubre’s 19 and 7, Wiggins’ 13, 6 and 6, and Curry’s 37 and 7 (plus 7 turnovers)
Toscano-Anderson in crunch time
Kevon Looney has been crucial for the Warriors this season, and served as the foil for James Wiseman’s unpredictability. He has been the steady eddy solid defender who uses his size to maneuver space as a rebounder and create passing lanes as a screener. But he was not his usual self on Sunday, and got replaced by Juan Toscano-Anderson in the key minutes of the fourth.
The fact that Toscano-Anderson is listed at 6’6″ just feels wrong. He plays significantly larger than his size and has proved invaluable.
He’s the athletic swiss army knife who makes Draymond Green’s job easier, who sets screens to open up Curry and finds himself uncovered and keeps his eyes up constantly to make use of the wide open space he’s so often given.
They kept him in down the stretch, and it paid dividends. He had an effective line of 10 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists.