Many believed that former Warriors forward Kevin Durant was taking shots at Steve Kerr for his comments about the team’s offense, but the veteran head coach doesn’t see it that way.
It’s possible that Kerr is trying to just get ahead of the story to shut it down, or maybe he does legitimately agree with KD on some level, but he did quickly respond to when Durant had this to say, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
“The motion offense we run in Golden State, it only works to a certain point. We can totally rely on only our system for maybe the first two rounds. Then the next two rounds we’re going to have to mix in individual play,” Durant said.
Kerr didn’t seem to take the comments personally, and he did appear to see where KD was coming from.
“I wasn’t at all offended what Kevin said because it’s basically the truth,” Kerr said, via The Athletic’s Anthony Slater. “You look at any system, I mean, I played the triangle with Michael Jordan. The offense ran a lot smoother all regular season and the first couple rounds of the playoffs than it did in the conference finals and Finals. It just did.”
He continued:
“That’s why guys like Michael Jordan and Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant are who they are. They can transcend any defense. But defenses in the playoffs, deep in the playoffs, combined with the physicality of the game — where refs can’t possibly call a foul every time — means that superstars have to take over. No system is just going to dice a Finals defense up. You have to rely on individual play. I didn’t look at (his comment) as offensive. I look at that as fact.”
It’s no secret that Durant favors isolation — looking to have the ball in his hands, with the offense running through him, rather than quick ball movement. As it relates to the Warriors, it worked both ways, as they won a title without KD, and two with him, so it’s hard to say which version was more successful.
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