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.

Warriors experiencing richness of the ‘taste of defeat

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

SAN FRANCISCO — Bill Bradley knew about winning. He played for the championship Knicks, then was a U.S. Senator. And about losing, failing in bids to become a candidate for president.

”The taste of defeat,” Bradley wrote of his career, “has a richness of experience all its own.”

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

‘An unbelievable victory,’ said Warriors coach

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND — So much has been said about the Warriors, their shooting, their defense and all the other facets that are part of winning basketball. But maybe, in this great run of a half decade, not enough emphasis has been put on a word that their coach, Steve Kerr, used on Wednesday night after a game as wild and emotional as any: guts.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Kerr on record-setting Curry: ‘He was tremendous’

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — He makes tough shots, that’s what he does. Always has, always will. Warriors fans knew it. Hey, the basketball world knew it. 

Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue just confirmed it.

Swish, swoosh. From downtown. From uptown. From here to eternity. Steph Curry was on fire, was on target, was, well, being Steph Curry, falling backwards, driving forwards, shooting, scoring.

Oh, what a night on Sunday at Oracle. The Warriors were focused. Steph was fabulous. Nine 3-pointers, an NBA Finals record, 33 points total. “It’s hard to look back at all his games,” said Steve Kerr, the Warriors' coach, “but he was tremendous.” 

So were the Warriors. They never trailed. Not once. They beat the Cavaliers 122-103, and with a 2-0 advantage in the best of seven-game series they are more than halfway to their third championship in four seasons.

You had to try to make Steph shoot twos. Cavs forward Kevin Love said that. But saying is not doing. “It’s tough,” Love conceded, “really tough to guard Steph anywhere out there on the floor. He’s just so good at finding himself open.”

Especially with teammates such as Kevin Durant, 26 points, and Klay Thompson, playing with that sore ankle from Thursday’s game, 20 points. Especially with Draymond Green anchoring a defense that a satisfied Kerr said was more intense than in Game 1.

Oh, those Warriors in full flight, when they are forcing turnovers and missed shots and racing the ball down court. Basketball at its most beautiful. For an opponent, even one as great as Cleveland, even one with arguably the best player in history, LeBron James, who had 29 points, 13 assists and 9 rebounds, it can be basketball at its most frustrating.

Remember what John Madden said about those great 49ers teams of Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, Steve Young et al? “Too many weapons.” So apt a description for the Warriors.

Steph and Klay, Kevin and Draymond. And then Sunday night, JaVale McGee, a sort-of-surprise starter at center (12 points), and off the bench, Shaun Livingston (10 points).

“I mean, when you’re trying to take away Klay, Steph and Durant,” said Lue, when asked about McGee’s 6-for 6 and Livingston’s 5-for-5, “other guys are going to be open. So you’ve got to make those guys beat you. But guys are locking in, paying attention to Klay, Steph and Durant.”

For as much good as that did.

Kerr was asked how deflating it is for an opposing team when Curry makes circus shots, the ones where he escapes the defense and is going sideways or the ones where he takes a step or three across halfcourt or the ones he barely gets away before the 24-second clock expires.

“I don’t know,” said Kerr, trying not to sound arrogant. “I’ve never played or coached against Steph. We feel a lot of joy when he makes them, so that’s not a question for me.”

The question for Steph is no question at all. He just does it. Always has done it. There are other parts to his game, passing, dribbling, mobility, but the shooting was the reason he was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player two years running.

The joke that he comes out of the locker room shooting is no joke. Just before he leaves the concourse to step on the court, Curry tosses up — and usually in — a shot that seems to have been launched from some place east of Sacramento.

“He’s a big shot taker, a big shot maker,” Draymond said of his teammate. “Tough shot maker. He did that tonight. The one where he was falling away, I wouldn’t necessarily say (I was) surprised, but it was oh, man, he’s really got it going.

“But we’ve seen this before, and he completely takes the game over with his scoring ability, and he did that tonight, and it came at a great time for us.”

Curry is fearless, which is a characteristic of great shooters. Also tireless. In practice he’ll hit 30 or 40 consecutive 3-pointers.

“I try all sorts of shots at one time or another,” said Curry. “But at that point (the fallback with about seven seconds on the shot clock), it’s just feel and letting it go. And thankfully it went in.”

As on this record night, so did eight others.

Warriors’ Kerr: ‘We seem to be at our best when threatened’

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — Sound and fury. From one side. They signify nothing, Shakespeare wrote.

The Houston Rockets are so full of bombast. “We’re better than them,” center Clint Capela said after Houston beat Golden State. In January.

That proper English is “We’re better than they,” perhaps, is to be taken as lightly as Warriors coach Steve Kerr takes Capela’s boast.

It’s now May, some four months later. And Thursday, at the Warriors' training complex, Kerr, facing the media — literally, they were grouped in front of him — for the first time since the Dubs on Tuesday night made it to the NBA Western Conference final against the Rockets, sort of responded to the Capela claim.

Kerr tried to act worried, reminding that the Dubs don’t have the home-court advantage for the first time in their four-year domination of the NBA, pointing out that Houston is improved on defense and that Chris Paul gives the Rockets “a new dimension.”

Yet, like one of those sheriffs in the old western movies, Kerr was reassuringly placid.

He likes the Warriors' position, which after three straight years in the NBA finals, two of which resulted in championships, is enviable. No bragging required.

“We seem to be at our best,” Kerr said without emotion, "when we’re threatened.” 

The man has been through more than could be imagined, high (titles in Chicago with Michael Jordan; titles at Golden State with Steph Curry and Co.) and low (his father assassinated when president of the American University in Beirut).    

So words from a player, well, they’re just words, and they carry less weight than those from Kerr.

“It’s good to be in the position we’re in,” Kerr said.

“Maybe the hardest championship,” he continued, “is the first one. You don’t quite know if you can do it. Once you get the first one, it’s a little bit like (playing with) house money. But you want it again. It’s an unbelievable feeling.”

Kerr knows the Rockets, knows Capela guards the rim and Paul and James Harden score from inside and outside. Knows the Rockets lead the playoffs in scoring (if narrowly ahead of the Warriors).

“But I like our position,” he said. “We have a couple of championships the last few years. It’s a nice feeling to have going into the series.”

That Houston win in January, by two points, gave the Rockets a 2-1 edge over the Warriors during the regular season. It also came at the end of Dubs’ five-game road trip, and the Warriors won the first four,

“Houston had a great off-season,” said Kerr, not trying to be funny. The Rockets not only picked up Paul, who Kerr describes as a “future Hall of Famer,” but also Luc Mbah a Moute, a muscle guy.

“They changed their focus,” said Kerr. “They went after defensive guys who are decent 3-point shooters instead of great 3-point shooters who are decent defensive guys. They became a better defensive team as a result.”

And, as it has been pounded into our heads in the four major sports in North America — and soccer around the globe — defense wins.

Which is why Draymond Green is so important for the Warriors. He can defend a guard, a forward, a center.

“He can play all the positions on the floor,” was the comment about Green by Alvin Gentry, coach of the New Orleans Pelicans, who the Warriors beat in the conference semis. “That’s what makes it really difficult to play against them.”

The 6-foot-7 Green isn’t bad on offense either. In the five-game series win over the Pelicans, he averaged a triple double, 14.8 points, 11.8 rebounds and 10 assists. The Warriors are 26-0 when Green has hit a triple, 4-0 in playoff games.

Draymond is no less infamous for going after opponents physically and vocally. A questioner Thursday asked Kerr whether Green’s style might be a problem.

The answer should have been expected. “The playoffs in general are more physical,” Kerr said. “The refs don’t call a lot of fouls. You’ve got to have guys like Draymond.”

Fortunately for the Warriors, they do.