Bad Chemistry Issues Bubbling Up for NBA Champions
Draymond Green, Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors are going out not with a whimper but with a nuclear-grade bang as their dynasty appears to be on the rocks.
It’s not enough that four different teams — the Raptors, Bucks, Trail Blazers and Nuggets — all look like legitimate title contenders early in the year. It’s not even enough the Rockets pulled off a 21-0 run in the fourth quarter on national television Thursday to drop the Warriors 107-86 and get to .500 and back into the playoff conversation.
No, the real problem is what coach Steve Kerr euphemistically called being “banged up spiritually.”
Which, in turn, would seem to suggest that Golden State will be making headlines for the newfound feud between Green and Durant, which hurt the product on the court in the Houston game after Green returned from a team-imposed one-game suspension.
And the headline they might be making, as Durant is a free agent this coming offseason, is “Dubs Ditch Dray at Deadline, Dispel Durant Doubts.”
The trouble came to light in an overtime loss Monday to the Clippers. Durant was visibly annoyed when Green lost the ball in the closing seconds of regulation, and the two had a fiery exchange on the bench.
Kevin Durant & Draymond Green get into a heated exchange after Draymond failed to get a shot off at the end of regulation during the Warriors loss to the Clippers. pic.twitter.com/uYROz4bld1
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) November 13, 2018
The one-game suspension came in response to Green’s “conduct detrimental to the team,” which seems like a downright British-grade understatement in light of what he reportedly said. According to Yahoo Sports, Green called Durant a “b—-” multiple times and said something along the lines of, “We don’t need you. We won without you. Leave.”
Durant, asked about his relationship with Green, simply said, “Don’t ask me about that again.”
After the Rockets loss, Kerr addressed the chemistry problem.
“We’re banged up a little bit physically and right now we’re banged up spiritually,” he said. “There’s no getting around that. So we’ve got to fill up our cup and get our spirit back, get our energy back, and we’re going to. It’s a long, long season. It’s a tough stretch we’re dealing with, but I know our guys.
“Draymond may not have had his best night tonight, in fact he played very poorly. But I liked his approach. He was genuine out there. He was competing. Nothing went his way, but I like where he’s heading. And now the rest of the team, we’ve got to all lift our spirits up and get back on the saddle. But we’re going through a little bit of a rough patch.”
Green, meanwhile, who incidentally shot 0-of-5 and had no points, five rebounds, five assists and five turnovers in an absolute stinker of a performance, played the “we all played poorly” card.
“We didn’t play our best game. It happens,” he said. “If those emotions are what caused us to lose that’s my bad, but we’re not panicking or think like, ‘Oh man, we’re not a great team.’ We’re still the best team in the league and we’re going to win more games, a bunch of games, and go win another championship and we’ll be fine.”
And sure, the Warriors scored only 86 points, turned the ball over 16 times to Houston’s five, shot just 4-of-18 from 3-point land in a game in 2018 and played like they couldn’t have beaten the post-LeBron Cleveland Cavaliers, but you don’t get to pull the “we didn’t play our best game” card when you’re as bad as Green was.
Then again, Green’s right — winning does have a tendency to paper over chemistry problems nicely.
Kerr, meanwhile, did admit he watched carefully to make sure Green and Durant could get along on the court during their minutes together.
“Yeah, of course,” Kerr said. “But you watch the whole team, everybody’s spirit in this game, and everybody’s energy is affected by the whole, what’s going on in the group. It was clear tonight that we were not ourselves. And sort of emotionally not there. You kind of forget sometimes how hard it is to win an NBA game. We’ve been spoiled around here because we have a lot of talent, we’ve had great momentum and great fortune. As I said right now we’re going through a rough patch and it shows. It’s up to us to get back on track.”
The Warriors’ next game is in Dallas, and while normally that would sound like a total gimme game — the Mavs are 6-8 and in 13th place in the Western Conference — Dallas just utterly trashed Utah 118-68 in their last game, and Luka Doncic made an absolute fool out of Defensive Player of the Year stalwart Rudy Gobert.
Luka Doncic brincando com o Rudy Gobert como se ele fosse um cachorro atrás da bola. ?pic.twitter.com/7dMdk6JAgJ
— NBA do Povo ??? (@NBAdoPovo) November 15, 2018
As for Green, he may say that the Warriors don’t “need” Kevin Durant, but one thing’s for sure.
One of those two guys is a second-overall-pick, two-time NBA Finals MVP, one-time league MVP, six-time first team and two-time second-team All-NBA, and one of the five best players in the league today.
The other one had zero points in a game his team lost by 21 and turned the ball over five times and oh, by the way, is a second-round draft pick with only the most fringe of all fringe Hall of Fame cases as a defensive specialist.
Guess which one the Warriors could do without more easily? It’s not Kevin Durant.
And by the way, the Warriors are still 12-4, still in first place, and still led by Durant and Steph Curry. They’ll live.
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