The crazy NBA: Curry frustrated; Clippers lose by 51

By Art Spander

The Warriors, who aren’t supposed to be very good, win a game by a point. The same night the Clippers, who are supposed to be very good, lose one by 51 points. And you think you understand the NBA?

The league is a compressed lunacy of late-game baskets, late-night charter flights and — other than LeBron James’ greatness — unpredictability.

I mean, whoever thought we’d read an AP story with a paragraph beginning, “The Clippers opened the third quarter on a 10-0 run to get within 40"?

Or that Steph Curry would be having trouble finding his shot?

Curry and the Warriors are back at it again Tuesday night, playing the Pistons in Detroit, their fourth straight road game to begin a season that already is a blend of shock (those routs by the Nets and the Bucks) and elation (that last-second in at Chicago on the 3-pointer by Damion Lee).

Asked if after that first victory there was a sense of relief, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, “Relief for sure, but more a sense that finally we can figure this thing out a bit."

What most of us figured out quickly enough is that it will take time for even so accomplished a shooter — he made 105 straight 3-pointers the other day in practice — to work smoothly with teammates other than the ones from the glory years.

“He’s frustrated,” Kerr said of Curry, “but that’s kind of natural. For Steph, this is a brand new team.”

A team without Kevin Durant or Klay Thompson or, until his sore foot heals, Draymond Green; a team with Kelly Oubre, Juan Toscano-Anderson, at times rookie James Wiseman and Damion Lee. A team as much seeking to make progress as to score points.

It’s one thing to know when to pull up for a jumper. It’s another to know who will be to your right if you decide to pass.

Kerr was an earlier version of Steph Curry as a player, if not quite as skilled, a gunner who could hit 3-pointers. He started with the Bulls, as a teammate of Michael Jordan, went to the Spurs and finished with the Blazers.

“Every time I went to a new team in my career,” said Kerr, “it was difficult to find comfort with my shots in the early going. And I think Steph is really going through the same thing because he’s not as comfortable where his shots are coming from because of different personnel.”

No question Thompson and Durant made it easier for Curry and everyone else on the Warriors. Sports are about adapting, or as Curry reminded, about learning and improving.

Not that Curry has far to go. He scored 36 in the 129-128 win at Chicago (and was supposed to take the last shot, but smartly the ball went to Lee), and in the three games Curry is averaging 25.

For Curry and the Warriors, who didn’t qualify for the playoffs, it was six months without basketball, then a week of practice and two exhibition games.

“We’ve never gone through this before as professionals, or at any level,” said Curry. “But no excuses. The shots I take I think I’m going to make. I seldom take one I don’t; maybe one or two bad shots in a game.”

Curry said that, for now, it’s energy that’s important, even more than accuracy. Same thing for Oubre, who’s been having a terrible time of it.

“The win was important,” Curry agreed. “1-2 is better than 0-3. A win in Detroit would make us .500 for the trip, which would be OK. The last thing you can do as a shooter is stop shooting, no matter how frustrating it is.”

And maybe find satisfaction that you didn’t lose a game by 51 points like the Clippers.

C.J. Beathard on win: ‘You couldn’t write a script for this’

By Art Spander

It didn’t mean much, this 49ers victory. Then again, it meant so very much.

It meant a team that had lost too many players with injuries and too many games — including the previous three — could show that the talent and courage clearly hadn’t been lost.

It meant C.J. Beathard, who a year ago had lost a brother, slain outside a Nashville bar during an altercation, could, with a belief in religion and his own skills, step out of the shadows and quarterback the Niners to a 20-12 upset victory over the Arizona Cardinals.

It does no good to wonder what might have been, in life or sport, but so often that’s the way we think. What happens, happens, often for the worst. Occasionally for the best.

Let’s listen to Beathard, who in his fourth season with the 49ers and his role as third-string QB, cut the long hair he had worn in memory of his brother and then Saturday at State Farm Stadium not far from Phoenix threw three touchdown passes and the Cards for a loop.

All Arizona (now 8-7) had to do for a spot in the playoffs was beat the Niners (now 6-9), as it did in the opening game of the season.

It did not, because the Niners' defense was remarkable, because the offense was dependable, because C.J. (for Casey Jarrett) was reliable. If you choose to think there was a bit of magic involved, well, Beathard will not disagree.

“This means more than I can really put into words,” said Beathard. ”Everything I’ve been through this year. The year anniversary of my brother’s passing. I just couldn’t write a script for this.

“I couldn’t pick things to go the way they did. The vibe in the locker room at practice when I got out there, it was if I had nothing to lose.”

You know the background, the numerous starters from last year’s Super Bowl team getting hurt week after week, especially on defense. The Buffalo Bills threw TD pass after TD pass against the 49ers. And of course, starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was gone with another leg injury, and then a week ago Sunday his replacement, Nick Mullens, incurred an injury to his passing arm.

Up stepped Beathard, who hadn’t started in two years.

The coaches call the plays, but they also call upon the guy who takes the ball from the center.

“People don’t know how much is on the quarterback’s plate,” said Niners fullback Kyle Juszczyk. “Every time we call a run, we’re calling two plays. It’s on the quarterback to decide on (reading) the defense. So much goes into the execution. I’m so excited with the job he did.”

And the job running back Jeff Wilson did, 183 yards on 22 attempts.

Or the defense did, limiting the Cardinals, the NFL’s third-ranked offense, to 350 yards (it was averaging 399) and of course, two field goals and a touchdown.

There was a missed extra point on the TD, something that seemed to be unavoidable. The Niners' consistent Robbie Gould missed one, after missing a 41-yard field goal, his first failure after 31 in a row.

Tight end George Kittle, he of the good humor and great blocking, returned after being out for weeks, and his presence helped as much as his play. “Practice was different with him there,” said head coach Kyle Shanahan.

“We didn’t have many guys left,” Shanahan added, referring to his lack of defenders, “but the people there were an inspiration. It came down to the final plays (when Arizona’s Kyler Murray was throwing deep).

“We didn’t tap out. We made the plays.”

And won a game, just as if it would have been scripted.

49ers' litany: Lose the ball, lose the game

By Art Spander

At least the 49ers didn’t lose to the Jets. Or the Rams, who did lose to the Jets. The Niners simply have lost to a great many others — including, on Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys.

Yes, the story is San Francisco losing more than Dallas winning, losing the football again and again, then the game, 41-33.

We've reached the point in this season that’s gone in too many directions — except the right one, other than those Rams games — that there’s little new, or good, to discuss. 

The mistakes are the same ones as virtually every week. Thus the observations are the same ones as virtually every week.

To wit, if you give the other team the ball on fumbles and interceptions, you’re doomed. The Niners did, four times, and they were.

How many times or ways need we hear a football team isn’t going to succeed if it keeps giving up the football? Answer: A great many, if it’s the 49ers.

They’ve had two turnovers or more in nine straight games. That can’t keep going on, only because for the 5-9 Niners the season can’t go on, literally, more than two more games. Thank heaven for small favors.

How this all came about the season after they were in the Super Bowl is one of the mysteries inherent in sport. Maybe because of the numerous injuries. Maybe because a few uninjured were not what we thought they’d be — or were supposed to be. Maybe because the opposition was better.

In what has become litany, Niners coach Kyle Shanahan summed up the game thusly: “We played good football. Offensively, special teams, the guys did a lot of good. But if they get our turnovers, it doesn’t matter what you do. You have little chance to win.”

Up until a couple weeks ago the Niners-Cowboys game at AT&T Stadium, between Dallas and Fort Worth was hot stuff: Sunday night, prime time, two teams with a history. Unfortunately, also two teams with losing records, so it was flexed out, replaced by Browns-Giants.

Al Michaels also was flexed out when, only days before kickoff, he tested positive for Covid-19. And although he insisted he felt fine, he had to step away for Mike Tirico. Yes, it’s a very strange year.

As Shanahan would reaffirm.

“We’ve put up with a lot of crap this year,” he said when asked if the injuries combined with the temporary relocation to the Phoenix area proved insurmountable.

“But too much to overcome? I think we would have overcome it if it weren’t for the turnovers. You play the game of football, you have a chance to win every week regardless of the circumstances. That doesn’t mean you can turn the ball over.”

Three minutes into the first quarter of a 0-0 game, the 49ers' Richie James fumbled away a punt return on the San Francisco 24. Seven plays later, Dallas led 7-0. Before you knew it, Nick Mullens was sacked, fumbled and, whoops, the Cowboys were up 14-0. The first quarter still had more than six minutes left.

In time, the Niners would move into a 14-14 tie, then a 24-24 tie. But Mullens would then throw two interceptions, one of which Shanahan said was a good pass. By deduction, you can guess the other was not.

“We ran the ball well in the first half,” said Mullens, “but we couldn’t run the ball every play. We needed to make some big-time plays. I didn’t capitalize enough on the opportunities.”

Mullens, who after all is a backup, has been pilloried for his errors. But the offensive line has not protected well, and if he doesn’t get the ball away in a hurry, then he gets pummeled — and often fumbles.

This season is as good as finished, although the Niners have two more games, including Saturday at Arizona — where the Cardinals are the home team, as opposed to the 49ers calling the Cardinals’ State Farm Stadium home because they were evicted from Santa Clara.

Along with everyone in a Niners uniform, Mullens was asked whether the move to a new facility in another state was the reason for the recent defeats.

“It’s been a challenge, yeah,” said the quarterback, “but as far as the turnovers, it’s not a valid excuse.”

There are no valid excuses.

Steph Curry is the face of Bay Area sports

By Art Spander

"Basketball is back.” Steph Curry made that comment a short while after he made us understand he too is back, throwing in those jump shots, tossing in those observations.

There will be no winter of discontent.

Curry and the Warriors head back to Sacramento, up Interstate 80, for another preseason game tonight against the Kings.

“Another opportunity to get better,” is how Curry describes it. “Trying to find my rhythm as fast as possible.”

Not that the search seems particularly difficult.

On Tuesday night, same teams, same place, Steph was rhythmical and accurate. He played 28 minutes. He scored 29 points. He had 4 assists. He had 3 steals,

He had what we know as a Steph Curry game.

Curry not only is the focus of the Warriors' offense, he’s the face of sports in the Bay Area.

He’s the celebrity who plays golf with Phil Mickelson and Peyton Manning. He’s the spokesman who congratulates Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer for becoming the winningest women’s basketball coach. He’s the two-time most valuable player.

There was a broken hand for much of the pandemic-shortened schedule last season. There were ankle problems early in his career. But mostly there has been satisfaction, for Curry, for the Warriors organization as it won championships and for the fans whose patience and loyalty were rewarded with a half-decade of success.

This is the 12^th season for Curry, who off court, with his family and outside interests, doesn’t miss a thing and on court almost never misses a free throw.   

He’s comfortable in his skin and in his roles as husband, father and hero, passing out compliments as smoothly as he passes the ball.

Asked the problem with a defense, which was criticized by head coach Steve Kerr after the Tuesday loss, Curry emphasized it was without Draymond Green, out after a positive Covid-19 test.

”He’s the quarterback, the defensive coordinator,” Curry said of Green. “He’s everything. We all have to be in sync. He makes us an amazing defense.”

Curry is no less appreciative of Steve Kerr, who became Warriors coach before the 2014-15 season, when the start of the domination — three championships, five consecutive NBA finals — began.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” affirmed Curry. “(Kerr) hasn’t changed at all, even with the physical stuff, being in and out of his seat.”

Kerr was so in pain from a bad back that at times, even during the playoffs, he was unable to sit courtside, and the coaching was done by Mike Brown, still the Warriors' primary assistant.

“We have great communication,” said Curry, talking about Kerr and himself. “He’s meant a lot to my success. He’s very consistent. So for me as a point guard, I’m an extension of him on the court. There’s transparency and communication, one through 15.”

Meaning each man on the roster.

This year figures to be different. Klay Thompson will be out. A 7-foot rookie center, James Wiseman, the No. 2 pick in the draft, in time may be in.

Someone wondered what the biggest thing Curry had learned in his seasons in the league and on the Warriors. Not surprisingly, the answer reminded us what we had learned about Curry, that he is eternally aware.

“I don’t think I learned this,” he said, “but I have an appreciation of what we get to do every single day. We haven’t lost that excitement.

“No matter how many championships we’ve won, or how many we lost., we keep the right perspective. The NBA is a blessing, and the ability to be in our world is an amazing experience. We all have lives off the court, and Steve appreciates the values we bring in our own stories.”

Yes, basketball is back, and so is Steph Curry. How fortunate for us all.

Niners’ Trent Williams: ‘Without the ball, it’s impossible to win’

By Art Spander

They tell us good teams find a way to win. This season, the 49ers are finding ways to lose. Therefore, the Niners must not be a very good football team. But you didn’t need any deductive reasoning to know that.

Not after the last two games, one against the Buffalo Bills when they were ineffective on defense, the other on Sunday against the Washington Football Team, when they were, well, terrible on offense.

Terrible, not that they didn’t run or pass — the Niners had 344 yards total to 193 for Washington. Terrible that a pass by Nick Mullens was intercepted and run back 76 yards for a touchdown — the infamous “pick six” — and a fumble by Mullens when he was sacked was returned 47 yards for a touchdown.

Small wonder, then, in their second straight Covid-19-forced home away from home, State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., the Niners were defeated, 23-15, by a team only slightly less worse than they have become. But one that, unlike San Francisco, is going to the playoffs.

Three turnovers Sunday, the two that proved destructive and another lost fumble. There have been a ton of them since Mullens replaced the injured Jimmy Garoppolo — some Mullens’ fault, some not — and they are a primary reason the Niners are 5-8 in a season going nowhere.

As Trent Williams, the offensive tackle who joined the Niners this season after years in Washington, pointed out, “The ball is everything. Without the ball, it’s impossible to win.”

Cycles. We go through them. So do teams. When things are going fine, well, there are lyrics to remind us that all too soon they won’t go well. “Riding high in April,” Frank Sinatra sang, “shot down in May.”

Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. That’s Murphy’s Law. A season after so much went right, until the second half of the Super Bowl, the Niners have been beset by injuries, errors and bad breaks. That’s a blend guaranteed to ruin the hopes of any sporting franchise.

The Niners have been patching and matching and hanging on. Or had been. Was it appropriate that on the first offensive play of the game Sunday, receiver Deebo Samuel reinjured his hamstring and was finished?

Whatever, if you don’t lose fumbles and throw interceptions, you might have a chance.

Last year when he was at Ohio State, Chase Young was making the case why he should be the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s NFL draft. That turned out to be Joe Burrow, the quarterback from LSU. Young went second, to Washington. His claim to be first has some validity.

He tore through the Niners in the second quarter (Williams was out of the game temporarily), knocked the ball from Mullens’ hand and ran it the 47 yards for the score that put Washington in front, 13-7.

That came at the end of the first half. The hit may have been intimidating. On the final play of the third quarter, Mullens was intercepted by Kamren Curl and run back 76 yards for a touchdown.

“We had a bad day,” said Niners coach Kyle Shanahan. “We missed a few opportunities early on offense. You don’t keep getting those again; Nick missed a few open throws. We struggled with some big penalties, I thought we had more drops than we usually have.

“Regardless we could have found a way, if it weren’t for the turnovers.”

Shanahan said after Mullens’ big interception, he thought about replacing him with C.J. Beathard. But as Beathard warmed up, Mullens passed to Kyle Juszczyk for a touchdown.

Mullens said on the fateful pick he was trying to find an outlet.

“You have to protect the ball,” Mullens agreed. “You can’t make that mistake. That changed the game.”

Nothing, unfortunately, is going to change the Niners’ record. “I expect us to play better than we did Sunday,” Shanahan said.

But in this season, expectations are thrown or fumbled away.