GSWJournal: Sights, Sounds, Links – Stephen Curry On James Harden, Brandon Rush vs Leandro Barbosa

WARRIORS PRACTICE FACILITY, OAKLAND, CA — Practice yesterday morning, before the Golden State Warriors flew out to the Northwest to face the Portland Trail Blazers tonight, ran over scheduled time, but once inside, there was no shortage of players getting their reps in.

[CLICK ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT ARROWS ON THE PIC ABOVE TO SEE THE PHOTO GALLERY/SLIDESHOW]

Stephen Curry‘s post-practice routine seemed to involve a lot more running and he had to take more breathers as a result.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKQ4HriUe_c&w=560&h=315]

More clips of Curry:

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Klay Thompson was working on his dribbling past the high screen:

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Kevon Looney, who had surgery on his right hip and is in the middle of a three- to six-month rehab, was shooting around, although not in a practice jersey:

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Here’s another shot of Looney:

Spotted at GSW practice: A rehabbing Kevon Looney, shooting pic.twitter.com/gch8MRvvM1

— Ethan Strauss (@SherwoodStrauss) October 7, 2015

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Finally, Shaun Livingston was shooting three-pointers, as we had seen him also doing at Stanford University before the first preseason game two nights ago against the Toronto Raptors.

Here are some highlights from the media scrums:

• Luke Walton commented on Curry’s high-five three-pointer and said the team had not yet analyzed the game tape, as the day had been spent sitting and listening to the Blue Angels talk about teamwork up in the air in fighter jets.

  “That clip is on the film session,” said Walton, “and so is his fast break where he threw a 1-on-3 lob to the one defender that was back. So we got the good and the bad on the videotape tomorrow.”

• Walton also said he talked to Steve Kerr about the game. As Monte Poole of CSN Bay Area reported:
  “He said he thought the guys looked good,” Walton said of Kerr, taking a leave of absence to recover from two back surgeries. “He was happy with way we played for the most part. He said keep building on it.
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  “It’s the first preseason game. He expected there to be sloppy parts, as we did, and there was. And then there were some other really good things. Overall he gave us a passing grade.”
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• Curry answered questions about James Harden‘s MVP remarks, his training regimen, and Livingston’s three-point shooting.

  Here’s his response on Harden, per Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group:

  Stephen Curry indicated he had not heard Houston Rockets guard James Harden’s comments about deserving the 2014-15 Most Valuable Player Award that the Warriors guard won.
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  “Oh, he said that?” Curry said Wednesday.
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  Then:
  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7CQoksVKEM&w=560&h=315]

  Poole summed it up as follows:

  Curry won the award with 1,198 total votes and 100 votes for first place. Harden finished second, with 936, including 25 first-place votes. Curry had 26 second place votes, while Harden had 87. LeBron James finished third in the balloting.
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  Curry’s final argument, three weeks after the award was announced, came as the Warriors ousted the Rockets in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals.
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  Curry finished with game-highs in points (26), assists (six, tied with teammate Andre Iguodala) and steals (five). Harden totaled 14 points on 2-of-11 shooting while committing 12 turnovers, a playoff record.
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  On his workout routine, a reporter joked that Curry could practically make up a routine and nobody would really know if it were true or not. As Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

  “You have to shoot three in a row left-handed, three in a row scoop shots from three and then three in a row blind-folded and around the back,” Curry said. “I made all of them in 27 seconds.”
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• Brandon Rush said that he lost weight over the summer and regained confidence in his jumpshot by playing in pickup games.

  As for being a consistent bench player, Rush said, “I think I have to earn that spot. The spot behind Klay is kinda open. (Leandro) Barbosa played pretty well that last preseason game…I know I’m gonna be out there going 100%. I know Barbosa is too.”

  Simmons filed this report on Rush:

  “I don’t think about those things,” said Rush, who is in the final season of his two-year, $2.4 million deal. “I’ll just let it play out. I just made sure that I came in here ready to play.”
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  Rush spent the summer making his body leaner, in hopes of taking some pounding off his knees. He also played a ton of pickup games and hoisted a ton of three-pointers.
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  He’s No. 31 on the NBA’s all-time list and No. 11 among active players in three-point accuracy (40.1 percent). But he didn’t have his legs in his shot last season, his confidence dwindled and he shot a career-low 11.1 percent from three-point range.
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  Those dark moments appear to be a thing of the past. His teammates went wild when Rush drilled his first three-point attempt in Monday’s exhibition opener, and the coaching staff has spoken of the confidence returning to Rush’s game.
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  “The thing is, he shoots like that all of the time,” interim head coach Luke Walton said. “When we play three-on-three or are have shooting drills, he’ll win a fair amount.”
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• Poole spoke with Draymond Green, who had this to say about the Blue Angels:
  Green said he appreciated the mutual respect shown, but realizes that basketball players military pilots may share similar principles but have totally different perspectives.
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  “I was just talking to one of them,” Green said, “and he was saying, ‘What we both do is very similar.’ And I’m like, ‘Stop saying that.’ Yeah, we come out and play a game and we do put our all into it. But at the end of the day, if you lose the game you go home and you go to sleep. Some guys can wake up the next day still pissed, some guys wake up and they’re not.
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  “But one mistake for them, and it can be all over.”
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  Simmons added this from Curry:

  “There are a lot of similarities between what they do and what we do: trusting one another, knowing where each other is on ‘the field of play’ and the communication, brotherhood and teamwork that it takes for us both to be successful,” Warriors point guard Stephen Curry said. “You see how unified they are in everything they do, and we try to do the same.”
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We spotted Poole talking to Green (see photo gallery above), who was asked about Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers‘ comments about the Warriors getting “lucky”. Poole wrote:

“I’ve had all the fun I’m going to have with that, as far as responding to people,” forward Draymond Green said as the team left for Portland. “It’s a new season. We’re trying to get better for this season and trying to win it again, instead of worrying about what somebody is saying about last season. That doesn’t matter.
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“People can say what they want, but if we’re going to live in the past we won’t win it again. That’s not our focus.”
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