If only for one night, Warriors display championship mettle in win vs. Clippers originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Steve Kerr knew how he sounded as his words came out.
The same Steve Kerr that was a five-time champion as a lightly recruited high school player who carved out a 15-year NBA career as the No. 50 overall pick in the draft. The same Steve Kerr who became a four-time champion head coach with no past coaching experience. The same Steve Kerr who played with a long list of all-time greats and now has led countless others as a coach.
This isn’t what Kerr and the Warriors play for. Not the NBA play-in tournament or being a No. 10 seed. Perfectly so, none of that mattered. Sports erase thought in moments of greatness, taken aback by the supreme.
“For one night, we’re us,” Kerr said. “We’re champions again. I know that may sound crazy to everybody out there. It’s a play-in game – I don’t care. Just absolutely beautiful to watch.”
A winner by nature and a fan of the game at heart, Kerr meant every word after the Warriors’ 126-121 comeback win Wednesday night against the No. 9 seed LA Clippers on the road at Intuit Dome. Win or go home. The Warriors are packed and going to Phoenix.
Steph Curry and Draymond Green have been Warriors basketball to a generation of fans. Another cast member is gone but not forgotten. They grew up on them. Kerr wasn’t their first coach, but he was the first to celebrate championships with them.
They’re still here, too.
With 9.5 seconds left in the game in hand as Brandin Podziemski shot free throws, Curry and Green turned to each other and hugged out their own ‘thank you’ cards to one another.
Curry appreciated every game Green trudged through without him during his 27-game absence to runner’s knee. Green appreciated Curry’s care and commitment to returning for a losing team in a season he could have done without. Of course the game came down to them in the end.
The score was tied at 117 apiece and about a minute and a half remaining in fourth quarter when Curry came off a screen from Green and let a three fly from the left wing. He missed. Nobody remembers.
After stopping the Clippers on one side, Curry and Green spoke in their secret language and played a two-man game the ended with Steph catching a handoff from Draymond and used his screen to take two dribbles to the left past 7-footer Brook Lopez, get space and send a rocket to the moon that landed safely through the net and back to its home.
The shot gave the Warriors a 120-117 lead with 50.4 seconds left. Nobody was surprised.
“Well, I’m taught to crash right there,” Green said to NBC Sports Bay Area. “But of course I’ve seen it too many times. It’s going in. I knew it. It’s what he do.”
It’s what Curry came back to do. To show the world he can still perform magic, scoring 35 points in 36 minutes at 38 years old with a bad knee and having defense played on him like holding, grabbing and tugging is rewarded instead of whistled. He also wanted to show himself there’s still tricks up his sleeve.
Curry looked more like a 38-year-old with a bad knee at the start of the single elimination game than someone who surely would have been an All-NBA selection if he stayed healthy. The evidence was in watching him have trouble getting past a long and athlete Derrick Jones Jr., and in the box score, scoring eight points on 2-of-9 shooting and the Warriors down by eight at halftime.
The wait is always worth it for a signature Curry Flurry. Once it began, the Clippers couldn’t stop the destruction. Curry scored 27 points in the second half – 16 in the third quarter and 11 in the fourth – and his coach had a few things to say about his superstar player, pounding the podium table in the middle of his message.
“This is why Steph came back,” Kerr said. “So everybody out there who thought Steph should have taken the rest of the year off, this is what he does. This is who he is. If he can compete, he’s going to compete. And it was just incredible to watch.”
As was Green’s defense against Kawhi Leonard down the stretch. Leonard averaged a career-high 27.9 points per game this season and exhaustingly got to 19 points on 8-of-17 shooting but only 1 of 6 on threes with Green in his grill. Green had a game-high four steals, and Leonard had a game-high five turnovers.
Three of Draymond’s four steals came from Kawhi, including the game-sealer. First, he picked him up full court. Then, Green got in front of Leonard and was able to shift his hips in position at the right wing beyond the arc. Right as Leonard went to dribble between his legs, Green called check mate, swiping the ball away and diving on it before giving it up to Podziemski.
The play before, Green dug into his football days and got in position like a defensive back to tip away an inbounds pass to Podziemski, who completed a three-point play.
“He feeds off those battles,” Curry said of his longest tenured teammate defending greats like Leonard. “Those matchups get him going. It’s our job to have his back. But the way he played tonight, and just the level of impact he had was incredible. I’m falling short on the words to describe it. It was unbelievable.
These are the Warriors, and this is what they do. This wasn’t just the Warriors of old, though. It also was about the Warriors of new, including their elder statesman.
Al Hoford, who turns 40 years old in June and recently returned from a calf strain, missed his first three shots. His only make going into the fourth quarter was a diving dunk.
Just like that, Horford showed why this part of the calendar is why the Warriors signed him. From the 5:37 mark to the 2:12 mark of the fourth quarter, Horford was Curry. He couldn’t miss, going 4 of 4 from 3-point range, with the last one giving the Warriors a two-point lead.
Horford even outscored Curry 12 to 11 in the fourth quarter from those four threes.
Were these the kind of games that Horford had in mind when he signed with the Warriors?
“I don’t know about the play-in,” Horford joked, “but the type of intensity in a meaningful game like this, yes. And then me being able to help our group, be there in those moments, I’m very grateful for that opportunity.”
The Warriors at the trade deadline brought in one of Horford’s close friends and championship teammate on the Boston Celtics. Kristaps Porziņģis scoring 20 points, throwing down a monster putback dunk and making three 3-pointers in this one game was more important than the 15 previously he had played on the Warriors. The win also left a lasting impression on Porziņģis, delaying his intriguing free agency this summer.
The play-in isn’t the regular season, nor is it the playoffs. In the regular season, the Warriors went 7-34 when trailing going into the fourth quarter. Championship DNA can even show up in the postseason ghostland of the play-in.
“This is the one of those 41 that if we lose we go home,” Green said to me. “We don’t want to go home. We want to keep playing. Anytime you got Steph Curry, you got a chance. So it’s on all of us to do our part to give him a chance to show his greatness. Everybody did their part.
“Brandin Podziemski was huge. Everybody did their part – Gui Santos. And we allowed him to be Steph Curry.”
It was Santos, 23, whose 20 points tied Porzingis for second-most on the team while leading the Warriors in plus/minus at plus-16. Podziemski, 23 and the youngest Warrior, was second in plus-minus, plus-10, third in scoring with 17 points and led in rebounds with seven. Each had miscues, but neither was scared of the moment.
This fading star was down by as many as 13 points in the fourth quarter. Its light still flickers, and even shines, from time to time.
“With all the wins that we’ve had here, a lot of them with a lot more at stake, this is right up there,” Kerr said. “Just because where we are and our age and the decline of our performance this year with the injuries. It was just a beautiful display of competitive will.”
Even for at least one more night, these are still the Warriors, and this is still what they do.
