3:40 AM ET
-
Kendra AndrewsESPN
SAN FRANCISCO – The Golden State Warriors have a long history of small ball squads. During the first championship of their dynastic era, their small squad was so deadly that it was called the “squad of death.”
He has gone through several different interpretations since then, but since the Warriors are starting their first playoff in three years, they seem to have the latest version.
Stephen Curry, Clay Thompson, Jordan Poole, Draymond Green and Andrew Wiggins played just five minutes together in Game 1 of their first-round series against the Denver Nuggets, but in those minutes they were 14 points ahead of the Nuggets. And it was those five minutes that displaced the momentum for the Warriors to enter the halftime of their eventual victory with 123-107 on Saturday night.
2 Related
“It’s a scary sight when we’re really leaving,” Thompson said. “It’s really just our first time really playing together.”
For the past three years, Poole has bombarded his veteran teammates with questions about the playoffs. He wanted to be ready every time he had the chance to play on the biggest stage of the NBA. But according to Warriors coach Steve Kerr, it’s not just his questions that have prepared the third-year guard. Their two games last year gave Poole a sense of the pressure he will face during their run this season.
“He’s not afraid of the moment,” Kerr told Poole. “He’s looking forward to it.”
Curry highlighted a game that happened about three minutes before the end of the first half, when Poole entered the transition and cut back and forth with the laying key.
“He doesn’t lack confidence,” Curry said. “This play embodies him. Because you just have the creativity and confidence to make this play. You don’t judge yourself. Somehow you live with the results and we’ve been doing it for years, and he’s getting into it … It’s fun to see. “
Poole finished the night with the highest 30 points in 9-of-13 shots, including 5-of-7 of 3. Only one player in Warriors history scored more points in his playoff debut: Wilt Chamberlain (35 points).
On Friday, Nuggets coach Michael Malone said they would not check Poole’s statistics against Denver during the regular season because “they were just out of the charts.” In the three games he played against the Nuggets, Poole averaged 22.7 points, 58% field shots and 61% 3-point line shots.
Curry said that Poole’s game until the end – he scored the best in the league 78 3 points since March – is a reason to feel comfortable to return more slowly to his own game.
Saturday’s outing was the first time Curry had played a game on March 16 and he came off the bench.
Curry’s decision was not to start. He said watching Thompson return from his injuries – especially the way Warriors will allow Thompson to get a 45-minute break in real time before he returns to the floor – gave Curry an idea of how to manage his limit on minutes. But it also gave the Warriors the flexibility they wanted within Curry’s minimum limit.
Curry played a total of 22 minutes, finishing with 16 points in 5 of 13 shots, including 3 of 6 of 3 points.
“I thought it looked great,” Thompson said. “His shot was short in the first half, but that can be expected when you retire from a long break. But he’s still Steph Curry … Only his weight and the threat of being there is the best. That makes us a champion team. “
As Thompson said, Curry’s biggest influence on the game was simply his presence on the court. This forced the Nuggets to decide whether they wanted to leave him in solitary confinement – which could allow him to catch fire – or to throw multiple defenders in his path, leaving another capable shooter wide open.
“It’s really hard to keep us safe,” Thompson said. “Technically, I guess we’re smaller, but you have to bring in defensive strength, effort and energy.”
As Curry added: “Seeing [Poole] being able to play pick-and-roll with me and Clay off and settling on Draymond and spraying Wigs, that puts a check mark in many squares on the list as what you would want for a powerful offense. “
The distance created by Curry was especially evident when he played in the Warriors with three guards with Poole and Thompson. Thompson finished with 19 points in 7 of 15 shots, including five three-pointers.
Of course, “Deathly Hallows 3.0” was collected by Green, as it was from the 2014-15 season.
Green did not play in any of the four games of the regular season against Denver, and Malone said that the reason the Nuggets went 3-1 in the series.
The Nuggets shot just five of 19 from the floor on Saturday when Green was the main defender. Nikola Jokic became 3 out of 12. In the Warriors attack, they finished 9th out of 14 with goals from the field after Green’s passes, including 5 out of 6 on undisputed shots.
“You need to be tough and smart, and that’s Draymond,” Kerr said.
Poole agreed.
“He strengthened it by one degree,” Poole told Green. “He, as our leader, we feed on his energy and we can see the chief honcho coming out there, being aggressive, breaking down huge stops against the MVP, we feed on that. That we can have the power to be there, and the way he controls our attack helps a lot. “
The Warriors had only a five-minute idea of their potential closure. But in those five minutes, Golden State could finally see the lineup he’s been talking about since Curry fell on his left leg in March. This is in their book for more than a decade.
Golden State has seen players change, such as Harrison Barnes and Kevin Durant, but at the end of the day this will always be key for the Warriors in the playoffs.
As for a new nickname for him?
“No,” Curry said. “Look, it’s hard to keep doing it over and over. Hard things we all have to do.”
Add Comment