TORONTO — Stephen Curry was smiling when he walked off the court and laughing in the locker room.
Draymond Green thought it prudent to go tell Drake what he really thought after the final buzzer and he walked into his post-game press conference beaming.
Andre Iguodala was cracking jokes in his media scum — giving “Kawhi Leonard” answers to questions he didn’t deem worthy of a long response.
The Warriors might be down one of the greatest players in NBA history and now down 1-0 in these NBA Finals, after a 118-109 loss Thursday, but they are anything but panicked.
No, these Warriors have the Raptors right where they want them.
Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but any hand-wringing about the Warriors’ station after one game is even more outlandish.
“I like where we’re at,” Green said after Game 1.
As well he should.
The Warriors, of course, don’t like losing or being down in this, the series of all series, but the fact of the matter is that Golden State played poorly and provided the Raptors every possible route to a blowout victory Thursday. And yet Toronto could never seem to fully shake these Dubs. Indeed, most of the second half was played under the constant, but never actualized the threat of a Warriors comeback. At one point in the fourth quarter, Golden State made it a single-possession game, but they never came any closer.
It took everything the Raptors had to fend off a Warriors team that was anything but inspiring in Game 1. Toronto was absolutely outstanding on the defensive end, and offensively, it seemed as if everyone but the unquestionably hobbled Leonard had the game of their life.
But there are levels to this greatness thing, and while the Raptors are a worthy opponent for the title — they were always going to make the Warriors work for a third-straight championship — the Warriors’ Game 1 performance was nowhere near their best.
Can we say the same for Toronto’s Game 1? I don’t think so.
The big difference in the game was the play of Raptors’ forward Pascal Siakam, who scored a playoff career-high 32 points on an outlandish 14-of-17 shooting Thursday.
It was the single best shooting night against the Warriors in the Steve Kerr era. Yep, in 838 games, no one had a better game against the Dubs than the man from Cameroon who was plucked out of a seminary and only started to play organized basketball seven years ago.
And because he was the best player on the court — a third star to match Curry and Leonard — the Raptors won.
While the Raptors’ coaching staff did a nice job of positioning Siakam on the court in Game 1 – him sliding to the dunker’s spot on high-pick-and-roll plays was particularly fruitful — the only thing that can explain his historic performance is that he had the game of his life. The basketball gods were smiling upon him.
Per Rotoworld, there have only been six players in the history of the NBA Finals who have posted at least 30 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks and two made 3-pointers: Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant.
And now, Pascal Siakam
This man even made both of his above-the-break 3-point attempts Thursday.
That’s no big deal for anyone else, but in the regular season and playoffs, Siakam made only 24 of 90 above-the-break 3-pointer attempts — an icy 26 percent clip.
Now, do you think he can do it in back-to-back games?
I’m a huge Siakam fan — how can you not be? — but I can’t see that happening.
Neither can Green.
“I think he made played an amazing game obviously, but he got out in transition and our transition D was horrible, and I let him get in a rhythm in the first half, first quarter really,” Green said. “So I got to do a better job of taking his rhythm away, and I will, but he had a great game. But that’s on me.”
Arguably the best defender in the history of the NBA has promised to put the clamps on Siakam in Game 2. If you’re a Warriors fan and don’t trust that Green will get that job done, then I don’t know what you’ve been watching all these years.
The Warriors’ offense — which was constipated for most of the night — could still be an issue in Game 2 and beyond, of course.
Without Kevin Durant in the lineup, the Warriors’ perimeter-based offense is going to struggle against the length, strength, and versatility of the Raptors’ perimeter defense. But lest we forget that the Warriors’ defense is the engine of their championship machine — the creator of so much of that transition offense they crave and require in this series — and it did not show up for Game 1.
At least it wasn’t played at the level it needed to be for Game 1 — a level the Warriors certainly have the ability to reach.
“There’s going to be some openings,” Kerr said. “The biggest thing for me was our transition defense was just awful. That’s the No. 1 priority when you play Toronto, you have to take care of their transition and we gave up 24 fast-break points, we turned it over 17 times. So that’s the game, really. The other stuff guys are going to make shots, miss shots, they’re going to have good games, they’re going to have bad games, but it’s kind of the key points that you can take care of that are the most important, and we didn’t take care of that transition.”
Green thinks conditioning — the Warriors had more than a week off before Game 1 — was a factor. The Dubs were rusty until it was too late.
He and Kerr both noted that Golden State had not really played the Raptors this season — both regular-season games featured key absences and, well, the Warriors don’t really care about the regular season. To them, Game 1 as always a feel-‘em-out game.
“I think that the biggest thing coming in is we really didn’t feel like we knew this team very well,” Kerr said. “So it’s going to be really good for us to have a game on tape where we can really pick it apart and see what we can do better.”
Neither of those things can be an excuse for Game 2 on Sunday night.
Between now and tipoff, Kerr has a chance to prove he’s worth every undisclosed penny of his big-money contract extension.
The Warriors coach doesn’t get much credit for his team going to a modern-day record five-straight Finals, and the Warriors, truthfully, haven’t been in too many situations over the last three years where Kerr has needed to show off his tactical prowess — most of the time the Warriors can advance by leaning their star power, Curry and Durant on offense, and Green on defense. But he is, indeed, one of the best X’s-and-O’s coaches in the NBA.
Now, with so many eyes on him, he gets to show those skills off.
After that, it’s up to his players to execute.
Say what you will about Thursday’s performance, but the Dubs’ track record at that is pretty good.
The Warriors are lacking shooters in most of their lineups. What can Kerr draw up that can exploit the Toronto defense and put those non-shooters in a position to succeed?
The Warriors stopped Leonard — who went 5-of-14 from the floor in Game 1 — but that opened opportunities for others, like Siakam and Marc Gasol, and then the Warriors gave away opportunity after opportunity with turnovers and terrible transition defense. But now that the Dubs have serviceable game film, what wrinkles can Kerr and his staff put into action to keep Leonard down, but also stop his teammates? (Perhaps more blitzes off pick-and-roll, as we saw late in the fourth quarter?)
And what happens to the Raptors’ scoreline if the Warriors simply hustle back?
The Warriors are in a position make a ton of adjustments — both sweeping and deft — ahead of Game 2. Not all of them will work, but you’d have to imagine that some will, and that could well be enough to flip the game into Golden State’s favor.
Meanwhile, the Raptors are riding an emotional high off Game 1 and want a repeat the unrepeatable in Game 2.
So, yes, the Warriors should feel good about where they are at heading into Sunday.
Because they might have lost Game 1, but they are still in control of this series.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/31/golden-state-warriors-nba-finals-2019-toronto-raptors-drake-draymond-green-stephen-curry-pascal-siakam-kawhi-leonard-highlights-video-twitter/
2019-05-31 11:00:00Z
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