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The Warriors lost to the Spurs 111-105 Monday in San Antonio.
Here are three thoughts on the contest:
Process > Outcome
In sports, we find comfort in the scoreboard.
The real world is full of ambiguity, and when we exit it for a few hours, part of the allure is the game’s empiricism. There’s a solace in knowing, beyond question, who won and who lost. Oftentimes, there’s even a justification for that outcome — how many times have you heard “they deserved to win”?
The Warriors lost to the Spurs on Monday night, but I want you to ignore the result. The outcome does not matter when we’re discussing this Golden State team, until next month, at least.
No, what matters is the process.
That’s because Golden State’s top opponent isn’t the Spurs or the Rockets or even the best team in the Eastern Conference — it’s themselves. Complacency, apathy, and ennui have defined so many of the Warriors’ losses this year, but with the playoffs looming, the Warriors need to make sure that those things won’t define their season. They need to get their process right.
And from my vantage point, the Warriors’ process was excellent on Monday night.
Golden State played energized, focused basketball. The ball moved on offense and the team communicated on defense.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, they were playing the hottest team in the NBA without two key players (DeMarcus Cousins and Andre Iguodala), and Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson shot a combined 32 percent from the field.
But even in one of their worst nights of the campaign, there were reasons to be enthused by the Splash Brothers: The greatest shooting duo in NBA history was working hard and getting open looks, the shots simply didn’t fall.
There’s no doubt that Curry and Thompson racked up a few IOUs with the basketball gods.
Don’t get me wrong, San Antonio played truly excellent basketball on Monday. If we’re attributing value to the outcome after the fact, then yes, they deserved to win.
But the Warriors are a veteran team with back-to-back championships and three in the last four years. They know to not be discouraged by losing one of the seemingly rare (at least in the macro) games they actively tried to win for all 48 minutes of competition. They know that they came correct and that, as much as we value the empiricism of the scoreboard, the truth is that sports are not guaranteed to be empirical — luck comes into play on any given night.
They know that Curry and Thompson are more likely to miss only 32 percent of their shots on a given night than to make only 32 percent. They know that when they play energized, communicative defense, they are as good as any team in the league on that side of the court. They know that when the ball moves on offense, no one can stop them.
The Warriors know that if they play the way they did Monday in every game in the postseason, they’ll cruise through the playoffs.
That’s because they know that process is more important than a one-off outcome. They know that a solid process (and a ton of talent) wins titles, and that their process — though missing some of its unparalleled talent — was right on Monday night.
Perhaps they know these things so well that they’ve made the regular season a joke.
Feel free to find meaning in that scoreboard, though.
Bogut didn’t miss a beat
Andrew Bogut didn’t wait to make an impact — he’s not one to go unnoticed.
So on the first possession of his 2019 NBA season, he placed a bone-crunching hip check on Stephen Curry’s defender, Bryn Forbes. The Australian was rightly whistled for a moving pick.
Welcome back, big fella.
Bogut hasn’t played for the Warriors in three years, and — I’m not sure if you’ve noticed — but a lot has changed since then. And yet his return to the Golden State lineup seemed seamless Monday.
Despite only recently landing in the U.S., and despite having not practiced with the team yet, the center started the game in San Antonio, in the place of DeMarcus Cousins. It was a bold play by Warriors’ coach Steve Kerr, but it paid off — the chemistry between Bogut and Stephen Curry on the offensive end and Draymond Green on the defensive end was instantly re-established.
It’s hard to say how much Bogut will play in the coming weeks — he might be subject to Kerr’s matchup roulette wheel — but what’s not in question is if he can play.
Monday’s game was a favorable matchup, no doubt — San Antonio is a slow-paced team with prodigious frontcourt size — but despite (again, this can’t be stated enough) not practicing with his new team, Bogut never looked like a liability in his 19 minutes of action against the Spurs.
I’d go as far as to say that the 7-footer looked downright spry. He certainly looks lighter than the last time we saw him on NBA court, and his ability to protect the rim on defense and run at it on offense are two skills that will never go out of style.
And while there were a few times where Bogut looked like he might not exactly know the offensive set the team was in — what, you didn’t think the Warriors used the exact same playbook from Kerr’s first year, did you? — he was smart enough and familiar enough with the system to put himself in the right place.
The playbook — to whatever degree the Warriors use one — shouldn’t take long for Bogut to master. The physical stuff shouldn’t be a problem either. He’s come to the Warriors on the heels of an MVP season in Australia’s NBL — he arrived in game shape.
And you won’t have to worry about Bogut needing to feel comfortable with the Dubs, either — he has gale-force personality and confidence. The center was even directing Green on the defensive end in his first game back.
The Warriors won’t have an issue adapting their game to accommodate Bogut. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen the Dubs slow things down on offense with Cousins in the fold, giving the talented center a better chance to flash his prodigious talent, particularly his passing ability. In the Warriors’ prior two games, their offense practically ran through Cousins.
Bogut doesn’t have the jump shot or the ball handling ability of Cousins, but he’s an excellent passer, too. The Warriors won’t have to scramble rotations if Cousins picks up early fouls — they can simply slide in Bogut and run the same actions.
When it was made, the Bogut signing looked like the right player at the right time. He was brought in as both Boogie insurance and as a spark of familiarity on a team that could use another veteran voice amid the long haul.
Yes, it’s only one game, but sometimes that’s all you need to know.
Those initial reactions were right: Bogut is exactly what the Warriors needed.
Gravity
Amid the conversation about the most talked about team in North American sports, the term “gravity” will come up, on occasion, in regards to Stephen Curry.
The idea is that Curry, through his ability to score from 35 feet out (or 65 feet, as we saw Monday), at the rim, and everywhere in between, creates a massive pull on an opposing defense.
That gravity isn’t constant — Newton’s law doesn’t apply here — but on Monday night, it was out full force.
If you’re wondering what Curry gravity looks like — here are some of the clearest examples yet:
https://gfycat.com/WideGreenGoshawk
https://gfycat.com/EnviousUnfinishedCanine
https://gfycat.com/EnormousSecretBantamrooster
https://gfycat.com/VainSaltyAbalone
