OAKLAND — Rested and recharged after sleeping in their own beds, the Golden State Warriors practice ran an hour long on Monday at the Oakland Marriott.
They need it, and they know it.
For the first time since 2013, the Warriors will enter a regular season game on a three-game losing streak. Steve Kerr’s band of shooters have not looked like the sorcerers basketball fans around the world have fallen in love with. So far in the month of March the Warriors are 28th in the NBA in offensive efficiency, while touting a 2-4 record. The San Antonio Spurs are nipping on their heels, just a half game back of first place. Not only is the No. 1 seed at stake, so is a likely first-round matchup with the Memphis Grizzlies. All of a sudden, the final month of this season will play a large role in determining who has the upper-hand in the Western Conference.
The panic button exists for Warriors Twitter, who is not reacting well to the first losing streak of Kerr’s tenure. “Steve Kerr came in with a master plan and now the league has caught up,” wrote one. Others have blasted his rotations without Kevin Durant, the way he has ignored the pick-and-roll this season with Steph Curry, the way he chose to rest starters against the Spurs instead of against the Timberwolves.
For lack of a better term, Kerr is under a wee bit of fire within his fan base and the local media. Most coaches and teams start to feel pressure in their shoulders once a losing streak commences. That’s human nature and how we’ve all been taught to react to defeat.
But for a myriad of reasons, Kerr is okay with this current stretch of mediocrity. This is the brilliance of Steve Kerr — negatives are never dwelled upon.
“This is going to sound crazy, but I kind of like it,” Kerr said with a sheepish smile. “I think you need some adversity. We obviously have some, probably for the first time in two and a half years, in the regular season.
“I think adversity can help,” Kerr continued. “It forces you to examine what you’re doing, clean some things up, and get right. I think this is gonna be good for us in the long run … I thought last year we just kept winning through a lot of the slippage late in the season.”
Kerr isn’t the only one who thinks this losing streak came at the right time for the Warriors. So does Andre Iguodala.
On the floor, nobody understands this Warriors team better than Iguodala. He’s served as the team’s calming force with the basketball in his hands the last three seasons, and his defensive effort often backs and opposing team into a corner.
Iguodala, like Kerr, is not panicking. He’s actually relaxing his mind before the postseason. The 33-year-old spent Sunday on the golf course and added that moments playing golf two years ago ended up becoming the team’s ally in a championship quest.
Back to the losing streak. Is the fan base grasping at straws?
“It’s almost like as if you are looking for something, or anything anything to be the cause,” Iguodala said of the losing streak. “And you get away from what it actually is — playing basketball, executing, doing the little things well, looking for other guys to step up. Collectively, making up for (Kevin Durant) being out. All of those things are effecting our basketball game. We always look for a different factor to be the reason.
“Case in point, the comment that I felt or made — we lose another game and that’s the reason why. But I’ve always said that — I’ve said this the last two or three years — the talent we have, losses benefit us more than anything. Because it takes us back to the fundamentals. It takes us back to the small things that help you win basketball games, and ultimately, will help you win a championship. It builds good discipline.”
Since KNBR has bestowed this columnist title upon me, the most impressive visionary I’ve covered in the Bay Area has been Steve Kerr. Never has he been caught up in a temporary moment. It’s expected that fans would be compelled to spew reactionary blame on someone. Because he’s not one of the best shooters in the world or a defensive player of the year candidate, Kerr is the first target to launch onto.
If the league-wide expectation is that the Warriors will be fine — which it is — than Kerr is right, once again. Of course, struggles in March will not define this team. Of course, things are going to get harrier in the playoffs.
And when they do, this team can lean on how they played out of a slump in March.