These Warriors are ‘feeling’ it
SAN FRANCISCO — The Warriors would never call themselves the smartest team in basketball, even if they believed that to be true, because it’s the type of boast that could wind up biting the team on its collective keister. Remember “light years ahead?”
There is no bigger target for the school bullies than the nerds who just won the blue ribbon at the science fair.
But it is becoming obvious that the Warriors are a good team, and they aren’t winning by overpowering teams or having distinctly better athletes. At times, the Warriors’ best center is a 6-foot-3 guard who bounced around the G League the past five years.
The Warriors have gone back to where they were in the first two seasons of their championship run, before Kevin Durant, when they inevitably were winning the science fair.
Maybe it’s something in the air. Or in the fog. The Giants were the smartest team in baseball this season, and now the Warriors are an early contender for that title this NBA season.
Yes, it’s early. When head coach Steve Kerr was late for a phone interview Wednesday morning and it was suggested that his team should be on autopilot now, he said, “Just cash it in. We’re good. We’re 9-1. We’re going to win the championship,” punctuated by a burst of laughter.
Kerr did agree that this Warriors team is smart, but there is another word he prefers. See if you can pick it out of this statement:
“We have a very high basketball IQ, collectively, with this group,” Kerr said. “The guys we brought in, between Andre (Iguodala) and Belli (Nemanja Bjelica) and Otto (Porter Jr.) and Gary (Payton II), they all have a great feel for the game. The puzzle fits. It’s fun when the puzzle fits.”
The word we’re looking for: feel. Kerr likes that word. Rather than passing judgment on a player’s intelligence, it salutes the player’s instincts, creativity and ability to see basketball as a team game.
The Warriors, to succeed, must have a lot of players with feel. Why?
“Basketball is not football,” Kerr said. “It’s not huddle up and call the play and execute it. It’s played on the fly. To me, it’s about constantly seeing concepts and then executing them together with your teammates, by creating space and making the right cuts, setting the right screen.”
The Warriors’ system demands more from the players, in terms of creative action, but not because it’s intricate.
“Some people say our offense is complex,” Kerr said. “I don’t look at it as complex, I look at it as pretty simple. We really only run a few actions. We don’t have a ton of calls, but in order to thrive in it, you just have to understand concepts — spacing and cutting. Because what we’ll do, we’ll run an action, and if we don’t get a shot out of it, we start moving the ball, and it’s just basketball, drive and kick and create space for one another.
“That’s where it’s important to have guys with feel, because they have to be connected and playing together.”
Again, it’s early, but through Wednesday, the Warriors led the league in assists per game (29.6), and in 3-pointers per game (15.7). They pass and they create open shots.
One reason the Warriors are so watchable is that once the system is in place, and the right players are plugged in, it’s less about the coaching and more about the action on the court, the flow.
“I think it’s harder (to coach) when you don’t have guys with feel, because then you have to be more programmed and robotic, and you have to draw up very specific sets,” Kerr said. “When you have guys with feel, you just teach concepts. I think teaching concepts is much easier, actually, than drawing up a million plays and asking your guys to execute a million plays.”
How do you get players with feel? Well, some of them you inherit, and you inspire them with new concepts. In Draymond Green, Stephen Curry and Iguodala, the Warriors have three players on the AllMensa team. Getting Iguodala, the ancient forward, back was a front-office stroke of genius.
“It’s uncanny, when you watch the tape, just over and over again, he makes the right read, the right cut, the right pass, the right box-out. He’s a genius out there,” Kerr said.
Aside on boxing out: That has long been a major point of emphasis for the Warriors’ coaches, because the team is often out-sized. This season’s team is getting the message. Through Wednesday, the Warriors were No. 3 in the NBA in defensive rebounding, meaning players are boxing out. Brains over brawn.
Two or three nerds can’t carry your science-fair team, and the Warriors deepened their rotation with strong feel players. General manager Bob Myers and his crew look for that type of player. Sometimes, they just get lucky. With Bjelica, for example.
“We knew he was a great shooter and he’d space the floor for us,” Kerr said,
“but I wasn’t aware of his level of skill in terms of driving and passing . ... He’s been amazing, he’s just a really skilled player, and to have a guy of that size who can make plays, it’s a lot of fun to watch.” Some players are closet IQ guys, their true basketball skill unrecognized until they are thrown into the Warriors’ system. Payton couldn’t get a job selling popcorn in the NBA the past five years, and suddenly, he’s in the rotation on the league’s hottest team.
“It’s interesting, it was harder to fit Gary in last year, because we didn’t have as much (outside) shooting,” Kerr said. “But now we’ve got a lot of shooting, and when you have shooting at every position, the floor opens up, and when the floor opens up, then the feel can take over . ... Now you’ve got Gary taking advantage of that spacing and getting lob dunks and back cuts to the rim, Andre making passes. It’s beautiful to watch.”
The concept of feel applies to the Warriors on defense, too. They were
No. 1 in the league in defensive efficiency through Wednesday.
“We’re not doing anything special, scheme-wise, that other teams aren’t doing,” Kerr said. “We just happen to have really highIQ players, and we’re anchored by one of the great defenders in the history of the game, in Draymond. We’re blessed to have really smart defenders, that’s the main thing.”
The Warriors might be the NBA’s hottest team, but they know they are not light years ahead of the pack. They are half a day ahead of the posse. And their science-fair project is coming along nicely.