SAN FRANCISCO — Stephen Curry obtained up from the ground rapidly after being fouled, appeared towards the group — clad in yellow T-shirts with the phrases “coldblooded” written on them — and should have thought they weren’t as excited as they need to have been .
He waved his arms and yelled — then screamed twice extra for good measure — and the white-knuckle Warriors crowd responded with a roar, accepting his course unquestioningly, an orchestra following its conductor.
Curry’s Golden State Warriors had entered Thursday evening’s sport, the third of their first-round playoff collection in opposition to the Sacramento Kings, in an uncomfortable spot. They had been dealing with their first 2-0 playoff deficit since Steve Kerr started teaching them in 2014. They had been with out Draymond Green, their defensive anchor and do-it-all ahead, whom the NBA had suspended for stepping on the chest of Kings ahead Domantas Sabonis in Game 2 on Monday.
But as they’ve all season, the Warriors figured it out on their residence ground, holding the league’s highest-scoring offense underneath 100 factors for less than the fifth time this season within the 114-97 victory. The Kings nonetheless lead the collection, 2-1. Game 4 is Sunday. But it, too, is at Golden State, and for that cause alone the Warriors had been feeling the collection was removed from over.
“We at all times play nice at residence,” Klay Thompson mentioned. “We obtained to get one on the street; we perceive. But we all know what we’re succesful of on this constructing. We received a championship right here. We’re succesful of something.”
Pick any of Curry’s baskets on Thursday evening — the six 3-pointers, the varied layups and jumpers that made up his game-high 36 factors — and see that shortly after every rating he appeared to carry the group in his palms: posing, dancing , directing.
It was a luxurious Curry didn’t get pleasure from within the first two video games of this collection in Sacramento, when the Warriors had the look of a workforce in hassle. After the victory, Curry pointed to the Warriors’ shortcomings on the street within the first reply of his information convention.
“We’ve proven that regardless of our self-inflicted wounds with turnovers and giving up offensive rebounds, that we’re succesful of beating that workforce any evening,” he mentioned. “It’s simply good to have one thing to indicate for it now.”
Whatever momentum the Warriors created could propel them to a different win in Game 4. It stays puzzling, although, how that momentum appears to vanish as quickly as they step off their residence ground.
The Warriors had been 33-8 at San Francisco’s Chase Center within the common season, a house report bettered this season solely by the Denver Nuggets (34-7) and the Memphis Grizzlies (35-6), the highest two groups within the Western Conference. . On the street, nevertheless, Golden State was a dreadful 11-30.
Struggles on the street are sometimes reserved for younger and inexperienced groups. The undeniable fact that the Warriors’ championship-tested core — Thompson, Curry, Green and Kerr — has carried out so poorly on the street might need been the season’s most curious contradiction.
The statistics supply a clue: The Warriors merely do not play adequate protection on the street, the place they allowed greater than 10 factors a sport (122.4) greater than they did at residence (111.7). No different workforce within the league has greater than a 6.9 differential. (Offensively, the Warriors do not appear to overlook a beat away from residence, the place their scoring averages on the street (119.7) and at residence (118.2) are solely fractionally totally different.
The situation will not be a secret contained in the Warriors’ locker room.
“If you are poor defensively, it is actually exhausting to win on the street,” Kerr mentioned in November. “You want to have the ability to string collectively stops to realize momentum and hold the house crowd out of it. If you are buying and selling baskets, the opposite workforce’s feeling good, it is simply actually exhausting to win the win that approach. So the street report is instantly linked to the protection.”
ugh returned to the purpose in March, saying of his workforce’s middling report, “We know that the reply to all that is in our protection.”
On Thursday evening, there have been three prevailing chants contained in the Chase Center: “boos” for Sabonis; roars of “Looon” for ahead Kevon Looney; and chants of “MVP!” every time Curry approached the free-throw line. Kerr mentioned the development of the world inbuilt 2019, with a decrease roof, makes for a extra “intimate crowd.”
“The roof will not be sky excessive like lots of the brand new arenas,” Kerr mentioned, including: “You can really feel the group. They are proper on prime of you.”
Eventually, although, the Warriors, the No. 6 seed within the West, are going to need to win a sport on the street to progress anyplace on this postseason, together with out of the primary spherical. “Until somebody wins a street sport, everybody’s simply holding serve,” Kerr mentioned.
Trading residence wins is math simply as unforgiving because the Warriors’ report. Kerr and his gamers will know they should discover a solution to change it. Fast.
Scott Cacciola contributed reporting.