Still here ... and still dynastic
The Warriors are one win away from their sixth trip to the NBA Finals in eight seasons. We (me especially) should have known they were too seasoned and versatile for the inexperienced Mavericks
The Phoenix Suns won 64 games — eight more than their closest pursuer. The Dallas Mavericks then steamrolled the Suns by 33 points in a Game 7 on Phoenix's floor with an utter small-balling clinic.
Factor in the Golden State Warriors' less-than-convincing conquest of the Memphis Grizzlies in the same round, with the Warriors laboring to eliminate the Grizz even after Ja Morant's series-ending knee injury, and there appeared to be ample justification to actually pick the upstart Mavericks to come out of the Western Conference.
The reasoning seemed so sound.
Three games later, I feel so dumb for even thinking it.
To suggest that the Mavericks at this stage of their development, for all of Luka Dončić’s individual brilliance, could out-small-ball the Warriors in a playoff series was folly. The only solace for fools like me is that there are more than a few of us guilty of putting too much stock in Dallas' closing flourish in the desert and discounting how well-suited this latest iteration of the Warriors was to breathe new life into Steve Kerr’s machine.
This is the 23rd playoff series for the Warriors under Kerr. They are one win away from taking their record in those series to a ridiculous 21-2. The rings-laden trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, so clearly fortified by the addition of Andrew Wiggins and the emergence of Jordan Poole, came to Dallas and snatched Game 3 on Sunday night with the sort of wire-to-wire cool and precision that loudly suggests Golden State's "championship DNA" — to use Thompson's words — has indeed been transferred to the new schoolers.
“We are just meshing at the right time,” Thompson said.
"They just stay connected throughout the entire game, whether they’re down 20 or up 20,” Dallas' Jalen Brunson said. “You can see that. It’s just very evident."
Dallas' inability to sustain a 19-point lead in the first half of Game 2 in San Francisco and secure a vital road win proved doubly fatal in this series because of a simple, unavoidable reality with the Curry & Co. Warriors: They always win a road game in your town in every single series they play.
It has happened in 26 consecutive playoff series now, going all the way back to the 2012-13 playoffs. In Game 3, Golden State oozed calm and self-assuredness, leaving you with the feeling as you watched them that the American Airlines Center visitors fully expected to move within one win of a sixth trip to the NBA Finals in eight years — no matter what desperate Dallas threw at them.
Multiple team staffers described the team's postgame reaction to the big win as "subdued," underlining the idea that the Warriors actually expected what we're seeing and were determined to treat it as business as usual. Yet another emotion was tangible in the hallway adjacent to Golden State's locker room as I began to encounter some of the longest-tenured Warriors individually.
GM Bob Myers spoke of enjoying this ride so much more after the attendant stresses of those five consecutive trips to the NBA Finals from 2014-15 through 2018-19 ... followed by two seasons filled with injury and then the agony of losing to Memphis in a playoff play-in decider.
Draymond Green was even more emphatic when I stopped him briefly in that hallway.
"It's fun as hell to be back on this stage," Green told me. "Those two years out were brutal."
Trying as those two seasons were for a proud group of champions, truth is they were likewise productive. Golden State did a masterful job developing Jordan Poole into Curry and Thompson's third Splash Brother, unearthing useful role players like Gary Payton II and Juan Toscano-Anderson and, most of all, gradually ushering Andrew Wiggins into an ideal role after he endured years of scorn in Minnesota for his perceived waste of talent.
The masterstroke of Myers' highly successful tenure was turning Kevin Durant's free-agent departure to Brooklyn into a sign-and-trade that brought D'Angelo Russell to the Bay Area. I still remember the scorn I personally received for writing at the time that the Warriors acquired Russell with the intent to trade him sooner rather than later but ensuring most of all that they did not lose Durant without compensation. Halfway through Russell's first season as a Warrior, Myers did just that and swapped him for Wiggins … plus the draft pick that became Jonathan Kuminga. Now look.
Two years later, Wiggins might be the scariest fourth option in basketball, efficiently finding offensive openings to supplement the shotmaking trio of Curry, Thompson and Poole and guarding Dončić as well as anyone has. With his length and smarts, plus a motor that allows him to apply full-court pressure — coupled with an uncommon resistance to Luka's many pump fakes — Wiggins is making Dončić work way harder than he wants to for his offense.
(You obviously saw what Wiggins did to Dončić at the other end.)
"He's a fantastic two-way player," Kerr said. "You don't win in the playoffs without guys like Wiggs."
Who would have imagined such pronouncements from Kerr when Wiggins first arrived?
That’s the surprise here: Wiggins becoming indispensable on the most significant stage … along with the unheralded veteran big man Kevon Looney punishing Dallas’ lack of rebounding and rim protection with the series of his life. Taking his praise a step further on the eve of tonight’s Game 4, Kerr said: “I think the Wiggins trade is the key to all of this.”
Hints about the Warriors’ potential as a group, by contrast, were there to be pinpointed but easily missed because Curry, Thompson and Green appeared in only three regular-season games together for a whopping 11 minutes. Including the playoffs, Golden State has suddenly surged to a tidy 40-10 this season (including the playoffs) when Curry and Green are both in uniform.
I’m so mad at myself for not anticipating Golden State’s rise sooner after covering this team so closely on those five consecutive trips to the Finals — especially the first three. Everyone sees it now, though. The Warriors know who they are. They haven’t forgotten how to win. They continue to be exhausting to defend with their pace and constant movement and have blended in some fresh sources of potency with Poole and Wiggins. The Dubs were also always a ferocious third-quarter team and have reminded us of that habit emphatically in this series, winning the period by 10, 12 and nine points in the first three games against Dallas.
And file this away: It should deeply concern Miami or Boston, whoever survives the injury-filled and blowout-riddled Eastern Conference finals, that the Warriors are poised to pick up some valuable rest before the Finals begin on June 2 … with Payton (elbow), Otto Porter Jr. (foot) and wise old Andre Iguodala (neck) all in contention to return from their ailments in the next.
“You can call them a dynasty,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said after his team was shoved to the brink of elimination.
Very much still.
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The Connelly Sweepstakes
A couple of Northwest Division teams that typically generate a minuscule amount of national media coverage just conspired to produce one of the most intriguing dramas of the season.
And in many ways it's only just beginning.
This probably won't get the attention it should in the midst of the conference finals, but Minnesota's successful poaching of Tim Connelly from Denver's front office is a whopper within the industry that has actually spawned louder questions — for both franchises.
From the Timberwolves' side: After committing a five-year deal worth $40 million to Connelly, with a reported (but not fully explained) equity piece attached, it is fair to question how much a front-office executive can realistically change Minnesota's reputation, trajectory and standing. While he had an undeniable string of draft successes in Denver, Connelly can't transform Minneapolis into a free-agent destination and thus will have to rely on his drafting and trading to nudge this team forward in a Western Conference that will be deeper next season in part because Connelly’s former team should be whole again. The Wolves’ offer was too rich to turn down, obviously, amid considerable skepticism leaguewide that Connelly wanted to leave Denver after a successful and happy nine-year run. But now he'll be under huge pressure to justify such a lucrative deal. The roster-building plan Connelly hatches to live up to it will be fascinating to watch, although he does get to start this time with a promising core starring Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards and an on-the-rise coach in Chris Finch.
From the Nuggets' side: This was always the likely outcome if you've followed Stan Kroenke's ownership and spending patterns — especially with the well-regarded Calvin Booth waiting in-house for Denver to turn to as Connelly's (lesser-paid) successor after Artūras Karnišovas left for Chicago. Nuggets fans, though, are understandably crestfallen, because it is essentially a rerun of what happened nearly a decade ago when Toronto made a big-money pitch to Masai Ujiri. The Nuggets let Ujiri walk, endured a few lean years and then watched Connelly build them back up through a string of strong draft selections headlined by Nikola Jokić (taken 41st overall) and Jamal Murray (No. 7) and the strong working relationship he forged with Coach Michael Malone. Can the Nuggets realistically count on Booth to succeed Connelly as ably as Connelly succeeded Ujiri? You can certainly understand the public's skepticism and dismay when time after time after time, on and off the floor, Denver takes the cost-saving route. Don't forget that, for the past three years, Nuggets fans have largely been unable to watch their favorite team's games because of an ongoing dispute between Kroenke and Colorado cable providers. So much of the team’s fan base feels justifiably alienated.
From Jokić's side: For weeks all indications have pointed to Jokić signing a five-year contract extension with the Nuggets worth in excess of $250 million this offseason as soon as they are allowed to put it on the table. As long as that stance doesn't change, Denver's post-Connelly future still looks brighter than Minnesota's, because the Nuggets would still have the two-time reigning MVP. Yet there is sure to be fretting in the Rocky Mountains until Jokić actually signs. Then the Jokić-Malone partnership will have to steady a franchise that has been rocked.
Numbers Game
🏀 22
Updating our recent piece on lead decision-makers in the front office who have met with the media to field questions since their teams' seasons ended: Only four of the 26 lead executives whose offseasons are already underway have not done so. The teams on that short list are Utah (which deputized GM Justin Zanik to hold a press conference in place of new Jazz CEO Danny Ainge), San Antonio (whose franchise patriarch, Gregg Popovich, speaks to the media near-daily while the Spurs are in season), Milwaukee (Jon Horst has yet to hold his expected season wrap-up) and the Knicks (whose president of basketball operations Leon Rose simply refuses to take questions from any media entity apart from MSG Network).
🏀 26.5
Miami's Jimmy Butler is averaging 26.5 points per game in the playoffs to rank eighth among postseason scoring leaders. Butler averaged 22.2 points per game during the regular season.
🏀 53
Sunday night’s Game 3 marked the 53rd time in Stephen Curry’s career that he made at least five 3-pointers in a playoff game. No other player in NBA history has yet reached 30.
🏀 12
The Celtics have lost only 12 games over the past four months (including the playoffs) and, as Boston’s ace radio play-by-play man Sean Grande pointed out, have gone 11-1 after those defeats, winning by an average of 16.9 points.
🏀 4
Dallas has lost its past four playoff games in which Luka Dončić has scored at least 40 points. According to our research expert pal Justin Kubatko, that ties Rick Barry for the longest such streak in NBA playoff history.
🏀 5
Only five centers in NBA history have won multiple regular-season MVP awards: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Moses Malone and Nikola Jokić.
🏀 13
With the No. 2 overall pick, Oklahoma City's Sam Presti is positioned to make his first top-five selection since drafting James Harden at No. 3 overall in 2009. Presti previously drafted Kevin Durant at No. 2 (2007) and Russell Westbrook at No. 4 (2008).
🏀 26
It’s a stat we keep writing about because it’s one of the truly standout achievements of the Steph/Klay/Draymond Era. As spotted last Tuesday by dialed-in reader Daniel Jokelson, I initially misstated when the Warriors’ handy habit of winning at least one road game in a whopping 26 consecutive playoff series began — it was actually two seasons before Golden State’s breakthrough championship in 2014-15 when it won Game 2s against both Denver and the LA Clippers under Mark Jackson in 2012-13.
Great column - kinda the Peter King of NBA 😉
hey Marc, I’m a huge fan of your writing and read your NYT sports column regularly. As an avid and long-time Dub fan (and basketball in general) I was sad to see your predictions that the Warriors would lose to Dallas. I’m glad you’ve come around to acknowledge the work the Warrior organization has done, and the spirit of the Dub players. Onward.