As I mentioned on the Watch Party livestream last night, the No. 1 fix for the Warriors isn’t actually more guys sacrificing or committing less turnovers. It’s getting one Wardell Stephen Curry back to 100% playing shape.
I thought during the game last night in OKC, he looked rusty. Even if that’s only part of it, turns out he’s still recovering from his cold, and you can hear it in his voice. He’s still a little congested (see video with captions and full transcript below):
Anytime you have a — you can probably still hear it — but anytime you have a cold type vibe and dealing with that, sitting in bed for two days, it takes a little bit to get back, but I felt great physically, just try to get your wind back is the biggest deal, but I’m happy with where I am now, considering a week ago it was rough.
Anthony Slater of ESPN immediately followed up, asking Steph if he planned to play tonight, the back end of a back-to-back, in San Antonio.
He replied yes and did not show up on this morning’s injury report. In fact, Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler also did not appear on it, suggesting that they will give it a go in this back-to-back, as well.
However, Jonathan Kuminga is questionable with “bilateral patellar tendonitis.”
The Slater-Draymond postgame podium exchange got a little spicy, as you may have seen Green’s quotes go viral. When asked what the difference has been so far as compared to the 23-8 end-of-season run, Dray responded, “I think everybody was committed to winning and doing that any way possible. And right now, it doesn’t feel that way.”
Slater followed up with, “Is that personal agenda type stuff or, I guess, how would you —?”
And that’s when Draymond answered by using the term “agenda” eight more times:
I think everyone has a personal agenda in this league, but you have to make those personal agenda work in the team confines and if it doesn’t work, then you gotta get rid of your agenda or eventually the agenda is the cause of someone getting rid of you. And I think you don’t want a team with no personal agendas because a goal is an agenda. And so you gotta have some type of personal agenda, but like I said, you got, your personal agenda must fit into the confines of the team.
But later Curry seemed to temper that a little bit in the locker room, even blaming himself when Nick Friedell of The Athletic asked for a follow-up to Draymond’s quotes:
I think the vibes are high. When you’re not winning, you point at certain things you can do in a game to either sacrifice for a teammate and things go a little rocky like we did tonight, try to go outside of just looking at the stat sheet to try to find winning plays that can help. I fell into that a little bit tonight trying to get myself going, but the big issue is obviously when you lose, you start to look around to figure out what’s the issue. Commitment to winning is just running the floor and taking care of the basketball. It’s not really about the shots going in or not and we haven’t done that consistently enough and our record shows that. So good news is, you can turn it around.
Imagine that, Steph with ultimate confidence and eagerness to take the bull by the horns, ending the scrum with: Good news is, we can turn it around.
Wouldn’t it be funny if he and some of the doomsayers on Xitter could have a postgame debate?
Steph’s confidence has always been knowing the next shot has a good chance of going in. Social media outrage would have you believe that the angst you just felt is how you must feel, forever and ever.
Get off those thumb-typing apps that reward visions of hell, people! It is so not real. It is so not representative of the thoughts that our very own heroes’ brains think.
By the way, Curry’s “good news” quip is akin to Butler’s usual “we just have to get back to winning” platitudes, those rather bland and repetitive statements of the obvious that get excluded from newspaper article quotes or tweets by aggregators.
But last night, also in the locker room, Jimmy offered slightly modified perspective from that challenge angle: “We’ll have to figure it out. It’s just what this road trip for, though.”
If only fans could learn from the words of the actual modern day gladiators, they might find that this mental approach actually is the best way to get through all forms of adversity…
00:00 STEPHEN CURRY, POSTGAME GSW-OKC: It’s a tough way to start the trip, we know that. We wanted to get off to a better start, just not even win or loss, just trying to execute on both ends. And they took it to us the first half and we didn’t really have any answers. Don’t get discouraged, don’t get down. They’re obviously the champs. They have an identity and they have a lot of confidence. It’s more for us to refresh tomorrow, try to come with some good energy and a little bit more mindfulness of how we’re trying to create offense, especially a little bit more tied together defensively. But don’t let this trickle into a bigger problem.
00:42 How did your health feel in your return?
00:45 It was alright. Anytime you have a — you can probably still hear it — but anytime you have a cold type vibe and dealing with that, sitting in bed for two days, it takes a little bit to get back, but I felt great physically, just try to get your wind back is the biggest deal, but I’m happy with where I am now, considering a week ago it was rough.
01:06 (Do you) plan to play tomorrow?
01:07 I’m trying to, yes.
01:13 (Do you) agree with that, do you feel that as the season starts?
01:19 I think the vibes are high. When you’re not winning, you point at certain things you can do in a game to either sacrifice for a teammate and things go a little rocky like we did tonight, try to go outside of just looking at the stat sheet to try to find winning plays that can help. I fell into that a little bit tonight trying to get myself going, but the big issue is obviously when you lose, you start to look around to figure out what’s the issue. Commitment to winning is just running the floor and taking care of the basketball. It’s not really about the shots going in or not and we haven’t done that consistently enough and our record shows that. So good news is, you can turn it around.
00:00 Things kind of unraveled. What did you think went wrong?
00:02 STEVE KERR, POSTGAME GSW-OKC: Well, we had 12 turnovers at halftime and it, they didn’t feel like they were forced. They just, from the defense, obviously OKC’s got a great defense and a great team, but felt like mostly decision making and so we’ve gotta make better decisions if we’re gonna, beat a good team and I’ve gotta do a better job of putting our guys in position to do so.
00:30 How alarming is this performance, set a tone or–?
00:34 Well, I could feel we weren’t in a great place coming back from Indiana and Milwaukee, that you could just feel that things weren’t quite clicking. And that, I thought, that continued. We got a couple of wins in there, but we’re not playing well and we haven’t been playing well for, really, since the second week of the season. It doesn’t feel right, what’s happening right now on the floor, the way we’re playing, the way we’re approaching things. Guys are, they’re trying. It’s not like it’s a lack of effort, but we’re not crashing. The old things we did at the end of last year when we got good, take care of the ball, crash, create good shots for each other, win the possession battle, we’re not doing any of those things right now.
01:30 Those are mostly like offensive things. Is that the end of the floor that you feel like is going the most–?
01:36 It’s always connected. I know I’ve said this to you guys, but when we got Jimmy last year, our defense skyrocketed and it wasn’t ‘cause we changed schemes and it wasn’t because Jimmy was, like, Dikembe Mutombo out there. It was just, we took care of the ball and the game connected. The game made sense and we, the crashing, getting offensive rebounds, it’s, it dramatically helps your defense. You gain extra possessions, you jam transition. First half, we didn’t crash at all. I think we had one offensive rebound, so I gotta do a better job. I’ve gotta find the keys that can get us to getting some confidence and some rhythm back.
02:21 Steve, how’d you feel about Steph’s return tonight?
02:24 It’s great to see him out there. Didn’t surprise me that he wasn’t sharp. He hasn’t done anything in a week other than a couple workouts the last two days. Glad to have him back, obviously, and glad that he could get his feet wet and, hopefully, find his rhythm here soon.
02:41 Do you expect Draymond and Al to both play tomorrow night?
02:44 I expect Al to play. Draymond would be questionable. He has played in every game to this point and, frankly, I think he needs a rest. Tomorrow might be a night where we do that. I’ve gotta talk to him and the performance team.
03:01 You’re gonna see more length and athleticism the rest of this trip. Just what are the keys to countering and beating things?
03:07 Being solid with the ball. We had so many one hand, left hand fling passes tonight that were turnovers. The game is about being solid and about fundamental play. And you watch Jimmy out there and he plays off two feet and he never gets outta control. And we can’t come out and be fundamentally lacking and expect to beat the best team in the league on their home floor. So we gotta find a way to be more solid and we will. We’ll obviously assess everything like we always do and we’ll see where that goes.
03:48 Follow with that, on Jimmy, three shot attempts tonight. Just what are the keys to getting him more involved?
03:55 He did get to the line eight times. I didn’t think it was a case of him not wanting to score. I just thought it was poor offensive execution, not good spacing, so these are all things that we’ve gotta clean up. Thanks.
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04:22 Do you think that is still an issue right now?
04:27 DRAYMOND GREEN: Yeah, we got outplayed, for sure. They played much harder.
04:31 What do you, when that happens, what do you do collectively to get it going?
04:39 You gotta fight your way out of it. Anytime you hit a little rut in this league, it’ll never be easy. It’ll never be pretty getting out of it. You gotta claw your way and right now that’s not the identity of this team.
04:52 In your losses, you guys’ turnover numbers have been really high. Is that the biggest issue right now?
04:59 It’s definitely an issue, but they had 20 turnovers, too, and they beat us by 30. So it’s a lot more issues than just that.
05:12 What do you think is the biggest difference between the way you ended last season once Jimmy got here and what’s going on right now?
05:25 I think everybody was committed to winning and doing that any way possible. And right now, it doesn’t feel that way.
05:38 Is that personal agenda type stuff or, I guess, how would you–?
05:46 I think everyone has a personal agenda in this league, but you have to make those personal agenda work in the team confines and if it doesn’t work, then you gotta get rid of your agenda or eventually the agenda is the cause of someone getting rid of you. And I think you don’t want a team with no personal agendas because a goal is an agenda. And so you gotta have some type of personal agenda, but like I said, you got, your personal agenda must fit into the confines of the team.
06:35 Where does that dynamic show up on the court?
06:42 What do you mean?
06:43 Like the not, the lack of commitment to winning.
06:47 Getting your ass kicked by 30 shows up fast. Yeah, it shows up really fast when you get whooped. We got whooped tonight.
07:00 Draymond. Sorry Draymond, these, Thunder’s trying to do what you guys did, win a title with a young core, promising future, and then you guys built on it multiple championships, decade long contention. Besides having just great players, what’s the key to making sure that what you guys got done, got done?
07:27 You have to like each other, which you can tell they love each other, which leads to all the magic and you have to understand roles, which they definitely understand their roles. They got their top dog, they got their Number Two. Everybody come in, they know their role, from Shai, no disrespect, tonight was the first time I seen 23, to Brooks. Everyone knows their role and that’s the way it has to be, in order to win in this league and they’re doing that, man. They’re, they are a well-oiled machine. They just plug and play, which is how we were at during those times. So it was very interesting to watch. When you have a leader that has that commitment to excellence day in and day out that Shai does, everyone else has to fall in line. And they’re doing that and it’s special to watch. They down Lou Dort, they’re down J Dub. They are down, they were down Kenrich Williams. They were down Aaron Wiggins, who I think is like their X factor and it didn’t seem like they were down anybody. That’s a level of excellence in order to reach the over and over again that you must have. And they got that.
09:12 Steve said he might give you a rest tomorrow night. Do you expect to play and do you think that you need a rest right now?
09:23 We’ll see. I feel good. There’s always a plan in place, so you try to figure it out as you go, but I feel pretty good.
09:39 Draymond, do you feel like this team is still figuring out their roles, just all the different things?
09:43 Yeah, for sure and in figuring out roles, it requires some selflessness because your role won’t always be what you want it to be. Who I thought I’d be coming into the NBA and what my role turned into are two completely drastically different things, but you gotta be a star in that role and so, yeah, we’re definitely still figuring out roles, but better do it fast.
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10:23 JIMMY BUTLER: I think he’s partly correct. Just gotta get back to doing whatever it takes to win. Everybody gonna have to sacrifice something. I can’t tell you what that sacrifice might be for every individual. It may be different for every individual every single night. It’s gotta get back to winning. It’s the the main thing, the only thing. Figure out what is needed to win [inaudible].
10:51 To your point, everybody might have a different reason on what they need to fix. What do you think the biggest collective problem is?
11:03 The fight. Honestly, I just think that the fight’s not always there. We cannot make a shot, I dunno. Give us an out to not guard. Whatever, why or whatever reason that may be, we gotta fight no matter what. Most of everybody I’m talking about not getting stops, just not playing hard, just not doing whatever it takes.
11:27 How do you get that, how do you get that fight back?
11:29 I don’t know. We’ll have to figure it out. It’s just what this road trip for, though. We got a good group. Everybody has to be honest with themselves. Everybody has to honest with everybody else. We’re gonna figure it out. We’re all we got at the end of the day, that’s never gonna [inaudible].
11:44 What’s the, you’re gonna see more speed and length, defensively, matchup wise, the rest of the trip. What are the keys to countering that?
11:50 I don’t know. That’s what the film is for. I don’t think that offense is ever really the problem, because people are gonna have to get back. Being the captain, I’m gonna have to guard somebody. Speed, length, all of that stuff, it’s good, great nowadays in this league, but we get back and guard, no matter how fast these people are, no matter how many [inaudible] these teams are, we’ll be alright.
12:17 What stands out with the turnovers right now?
12:19 Just not caring enough about every possession, get lazy with the ball. some of them are good turnovers, like over passings the ball, looking for the open guy and some of them are just, can’t have it. But the people that have the ball a lot, they get a couple turnovers. Steph gonna get those. Dray gonna get those. Myself, I can’t have turnovers. You can’t have turnovers. Trayce can’t have turnovers and nothing’s, I tell that to them like I told you. We are the ones that have to keep our turnovers down.
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