WARRIORS PRACTICE FACILITY, OAKLAND, CA — Back on Monday 11/25/2013, the Golden State Warriors‘ practice went about 45 minutes over the scheduled end time. Jermaine O’Neal would later say after last night’s eeked-out victory over the New Orleans Pelicans that it was, in effect, a “must-win” game.
At post-practice, players were shooting around, including JO, who practiced, according to coach Mark Jackson, although Jackson said JO would be a game-time decision. We now know from O’Neal’s post-game interview that he had told the coaching staff he was going to play for sure yesterday night.
David Lee was also busy practicing post up moves on assistant coach Brian Scalabrine. He was making a lot of them. Lee obviously has an array of moves and has really come a long way over the years. Seeing him utilize the entire repertoire up close made you appreciate just how skilled and mobile a big man he is.
In the distance, it was somewhat comforting to see Andre Iguodala, albeit in the familiar gray t-shirt signifying he did not practice, shooting free throws. It looks like his injured left hamstring isn’t terribly serious and that it will simply take some time to heal.
And while Kent Bazemore shot threes on the far basket, as usual, Stephen Curry was on the near court practicing his pinch post moves. You saw some of them yesterday night in New Orleans, although he wasn’t hitting much of them against the Pelicans.
Lee was the first to sit down with media and the theme of “stepping up” on this road trip that would feature the Pelicans, the Dallas Mavericks, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Sacramento Kings began.
“Once again, take what’s happened and make the most of it and go out there and guys gotta step up and play,” he said.
With it being obvious that the Warriors would be short-handed and bench guys would need to step up, and with Marcus Thompson, Rusty Simmons, and Sarah Todd all absent, Monte Poole and I were left looking at each other if we had more questions, but we didn’t, and Lee got one of the easiest post-practice sessions ever recorded.
Next was Steph and he echoed the need to step up.
“Definitely a huge blow, but coach always preaches next guy has to step up,” Steph said, “Dewayne (Dedmon) and Mo (Marreese Speights), D.Lee, hopefully we get JO back, I’m not sure, but you gotta do it by committee.”
With the depletion, what emerged in my mind was the thought of Curry possibly stepping up as he did last year at Madison Square Garden in the absence of D.Lee, for 54 points. I obviously didn’t want to ask him if he was going to pull something like that off again, so I asked him if he felt any extra burden.
“Of course. Like I said it’s the same mentality, so other guys gotta step up and do more in their injured guy’s absence. It’s what guys tried to do when I was out and we gotta do the same. The situation that we’re in right now, to be 8-and-6, three-game slide. It’s not the end of the world, so we gotta figure out how to get back on the right foot.”
So the thought of busting out certainly wasn’t on the forefront of his mind and, once again, you saw Jackson’s theme of “Steph trusts his coach” come out.
When it was his time to address the media, coach Jackson reiterated the mentality and it was clear that the talk inside the locker room hammered on the next guys in the rotation making that step forward, rather than any of the main players having to have an extraordinary performance. This is, of course, an ingrained team concept with the Warriors.
“We gotta have guys step up and be ready to play,” Jackson said, “Obviously another man down, but it’s an opportunity for somebody to step up and get a big win.”
Jackson also went back to one of his other foundations: the Warriors brand of basketball.
“It’s important for us to stop the bleeding by playing our brand of basketball and, if we do that, it does not matter where we play. If we don’t do it, it won’t matter where we play also.”
I tried to broach the subject of the main players taking more responsibility of keeping themselves in the game due to the thin bench and lesser production in fourth quarters, but it Bogut’s foul trouble, Klay Thompson‘s foul trouble, or Draymond Green‘s suspension.
“Bad basketball. We’ve struggled. We own it and we look forward to getting it right. We’re gonna compete and we’re gonna defend. Fouls are gonna go against us. We gotta make smart plays. Klay picks up his fifth staying back after a missed shot fouling LaMarcus Aldridge,” Jackson said “That’s just bad basketball and not smart. You gotta be smarter.”
The fact that Jackson pointed out a specific play for Klay tells me that they probably had a talk about that, although Klay did take responsibility for his foul troubles in the post game interviews after the loss to the Portland Trailblazers.
As mentioned in our pregame article, Andy Liu covered the sentiments on Andrew Bogut‘s suspension.
Poole covered the questions about the road trip and filling in “by committee”.
While against the Oklahoma City Thunder, albeit healthy, the Dubs executed for the win, there wasn’t as much a sense of urgency as there was anticipation for that particular game. So it was good to see the team finally come through and rewarded with a win in an environment of urgency.
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