OAKLAND — Before Tuesday’s game tipped off, Steph Curry had a picturesque portrait of how the Warriors’ first game back at Oracle Arena would play out: A blowout the candles type of win for his 29th birthday.
“The realization is that it’s going to be a dogfight,” Curry said. “We still get everybody’s best shot.”
Partially surprising, partially not considering the wicked month of March its been, the Warriors skated by with a 106-104 win over the Philadelphia 76ers Tuesday, looking completely out of sorts the first three quarters. It took a ferocious 15-point fourth quarter rally to escape with a two-point victory. At home. These are abnormal times in Warriors-World. There’s nothing really to compare this to.
Steve Kerr said it best afterwards: Energy and shot-making go hand-in-hand. They are essentially the same thing for Golden State. So when the Warriors aren’t hitting shots, and cannot rely on Kevin Durant’s brilliance, there’s one person who can bail them out, who knows how to flip bad basketball back into poetry in motion.
Resident gravedigger, Draymond Green.
“Actually early second quarter during a timeout, when I came back to the huddle, he was in the middle of telling the guys, ‘This is going to be hard,’” Steve Kerr said. “When you’re in a rut, it’s never easy. You don’t lose five out of seven and then just all of a sudden blow a team out. You’ve got to dig your way out. And he led the charge.”
“We’ve been in a little bit of a rut,” Green told the media he reminded guys in the huddle. “The only way to change that is to grind yourself out, grind your way out of it. It’s not going to be pretty, the shots aren’t going to fall. That’s just the way the game works. You don’t go in a rut and then come out and hit 20 3’s. It just don’t work like that. You’ve got the grind your way out of it. And I think tonight we did that.”
The hopeful NBA Defensive Player of the Year turned in yet another signature game during a campaign season: 20 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 6 blocks (passing Andrew Bogut on the franchise’s all-time list in blocks) and 4 steals. Coming into the year, Green revealed one of the Warriors’ top goals was to try and win the free throw battle. On a night when the Warriors desperately needed offense from a third source, Green hit a career-tying 11 free throws. The 76ers barked and barked — and then Green finally bit.
“Draymond set the tone,” Matt Barnes said, “and we followed behind him.”
“It’s a reminder how important our defense is,” Curry said, who scored 29 points,12 of them in the fourth quarter — Klay Thompson also added 28 points. “If you’re not hitting shots you can’t let it affect the other end of the floor. Down 12? The only way to get back in was to play defense.”
Kerr and Green have been at odds before, but the odd couple are in strong agreement on Golden State’s current skid: The Warriors aren’t going to magically start making every shot overnight. This is going to be a grind, and this team must scratch and claw their way out of this. Turning defense into offense has long been a skill the Warriors have mastered, but it’s disappeared as of late. It’s such a simple equation for an elaborate and complex basketball team. Similar to how the government has three branches, the Warriors do too — ball movement, deep shooting and defense. It takes games like this against the Sixers for the team to realize the latter pillar can lead into the rest.
So Green and the Warriors defense made adjustments, starting with Green picking up the defense full court in the fourth quarter. Young Philadelphia players Dario Saric and T.J. McConnell caved under the pressure. The intensity, and the crowd, threw the 76ers in a tizzy. Golden State pounced to the tune of a 15-2 run.
“Defend,” Green said, “and the offense will come. And once we started to defend, everything else started to go our way.”
The lingering question is why are the Warriors just realizing this, or more likely, how do they stay this committed on the defensive end all four quarters with 15 games left on the schedule? Compared to most NBA teams, the Warriors don’t play lazily. They lose focus. They get tunnel vision on offense.
While Kevin Durant is out, and Curry works out the kinks of his shots, and Kerr messes with the rotations, Draymond Green in the new constant. His defensive energy, and the way he demands the same from his teammates, is going to be how this Warriors team eventually snaps out of their funk.
Tuesday was a step in the right direction.