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Thursday morning, the NBA’s worst came to light. There’s no spinning that a player of note and an acting NBA head coach landing federal indictments in a betting probe is bad news.
It is, in fact, the kind of crisis that can send an entire league into a tailspin.
So maybe it was fitting —a karmic counterbalance — that mere hours later, the absolute best of the NBA was right there for the world to see, front and center at Chase Center.
That Warriors-Nuggets game is why we still tune in. That contest is why we still love this game.
We were treated to a playoff game in October. Two legends of the game, Steph Curry and Nikola Jokic, were going blow-for-blow down the stretch, with two top-tier teams playing fully-engaged basketball, even into overtime, even when the stakes couldn’t have been lower.
The Warriors took down the Nuggets, 137-131, on Thursday, clawing their way back from a 14-point crater, surviving a 50-point explosion from San Jose’s Aaron Gordon, and somehow shrugging off yet another triple-double from Jokic.
Yes, it’s only Game No. 2, but if the Warriors are still playing deep into the NBA playoffs come May, there’s a real chance we look back at Thursday’s game as the foreshadowing of that success.
The Nuggets are a bona fide, no-doubt-about-it title contender, and they’re at full strength.
So, yes, it was only one game, but if the Nuggets are the real deal, what does that make the team that beat them on Thursday?
The Dubs have three major things working in their favor this season that they simply lacked in the previous campaign.
The first is an engaged, role-playing Jonathan Kuminga. The Warriors forward is now 2-for-2 on winning performances to start the season. There are 80 games left, but I honestly cannot recall a time Kuminga has ever strung together back-to-back possessions, much less whole games, where he was playing active, smart, and selfless basketball like this. He’s finally getting it.
The second change is the addition of the old man, Al Horford. The 39-year-old knows exactly where he needs to be on the court, on both ends, at all times. His three made 3-pointers Thursday were absolutely massive in the Dubs’ gritty, come-from-behind win.
And Horford’s pairing with Draymond Green? It’s a thing of beauty, and it’s nearly tragic.
Both men have rings on their fingers and places in the Basketball Hall of Fame, but it’s a shame these two will only play together for a year or two. What could have been.
Defensively, they can play off each other perfectly. Jokic took 10 shots combined in the fourth quarter and overtime — he missed all five that Horford defended him on and went 1-for-3 against Green (with his make being of the highest level of difficulty.)
On the offensive end, Horford’s floor spacing unlocks Draymond to operate as a perimeter screener and a short-roll maestro.
It’s seamless stuff.
Everyone within the Warriors organization knew Horford and Green would work together, but honestly, they might have even undersold it.
“For these moments, it’s what you play for,” Horford said.
And the third thing? Continuity.
Sure, that could change in the months to come with a couple of phone calls, but for now, the Warriors aren’t spending every day staring at the trade deadline, desperately hoping for reinforcements. No, they have the luxury of experimenting in the short term because they know they have enough as things stands.
As such, those experiments can pay off exponentially down the line.
That is precisely why Warriors coach Steve Kerr had zero problem playing 22-year-old Will Richard deep into the fourth quarter of a tight game against a top Western Conference foe on Thursday.
It was a prudent decision, make no mistake — Richard was a dynamo and his sheer activity helped flip the game for the Dubs — but it’s also a move Kerr could make with a sense of impunity.
“There’s something about winning players at whatever level. He’s a champion for a reason down there in Florida,” Curry said of Richard, who won the NCAA title with the Gators last season.
The Dubs have everything they need to truly compete right now. The question, the tantalizing one, is whether they have more than they initially budgeted for.
Look, we all know how this goes sideways: The old bodies break down. The young bodies can’t fill the gaps. Two impressive wins in October don’t suddenly change that paradigm.
But maybe, just maybe, the incredible reward of another title run is worth the risk for these Dubs.
And maybe we’ll see this kind of electrifying, high-stakes basketball from the fall in the spring.
Wouldn’t that be a treat? To
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Dieter Kurtenbach
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