SAN FRANCISCO — Basketball might be played by athletes of the highest order, but its games are still won with intelligence. And for most of the last decade, no NBA team has been more intelligent than the Golden State Warriors.
This season, the Dubs’ basketball intelligence has ebbed and flowed — as evidenced by the team’s middling record. But with the team’s season on the line Tuesday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Warriors showed that they still have the kind of next-level thinking that makes them a formidable — if not nearly unbeatable — playoff foe.
Two of these sparks of brilliance came from familiar sources: Draymond Green and Steph Curry.
The third came from second-year wing Moses Moody.
All three were critical in the Dubs’ 136-125 win over OKC, which kept the Warriors in the top six seeds of the Western Conference standings for another few nights ahead of the team’s final two games of the regular season.
The little things that helped the Warriors beat the Thunder will be big things in the postseason.
Green’s full moment of brilliance was, admittedly, accidental. Good on him for saying as much when I asked him about it after the game.
But I’ll tell you what I told him:
He’s still getting credit for it.
Green’s reputation precedes him in so many areas. Here, his reputation for having a genius-level basketball IQ and his penchant for gamesmanship can’t be ignored.
Green looked like he knew exactly what he was doing. He can’t help but make winning plays, even when he’s not trying.
Let’s recap:
With a little more than 6 minutes remaining in the game, the Warriors and Thunder were tied at 115 when Steph Curry hit a 3-pointer following a Warriors offensive rebound.
On the subsequent possession, Thunder guards Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey had a miscommunication, and SGA tossed the ball out of bounds on the baseline.
That’s when Green, looking to capitalize on a rare Thunder turnover, decided to push the pace. He immediately inbounded the ball and, upon receiving it back from Donte DiVincenzo, pushed up the court. Ten seconds and five passes later, Green had an uncontested layup under the hoop, giving the Warriors a five-point lead.
The momentum in the game had swung. Timeout, Thunder.
But what made that mini-run so impressive was that Green’s quick inbound stopped rookie Thunder wing Jalen Williams from entering the game.
Green looked to press the Warriors’ slight advantage, and in doing so, the referees were sped up to the point where they failed to stop play after a dead-ball turnover to let Williams enter the game.
The 5-0 swing became a 6-0 run after Thunder coach Mark Daigneault threw a tantrum and was issued a technical foul. The Thunder were rattled, and the Warriors never looked back.
“There are three referees on the court, but they inbound the ball so fast, none of them recognized there was a sub,” Daigneault said after the game. “That’s the equivalent of an umpire walking a guy on three pitches.”
Daigneault isn’t wrong.
But neither is Green, who, in this case, wasn’t walked on three pitches, but rather stole first base.
It was smart for Green to try to keep the good times rolling for the Dubs: The Warriors play better the faster the game goes, while young teams (and coaches, it seems) can spiral in those environments. But it was brilliant if doing that kept Williams — an excellent defender and a pain for the Warriors to defend Tuesday — out of the game for another possession, at least.
Again, Green says he didn’t know about the Thunder sub, but I swear, he looked directly at Williams at the scorer’s table before rushing to the baseline to inbound the ball.
Green’s role in the Warriors’ winning machine has resulted in him being blamed for a lot of things he didn’t do. He should take the credit for doing something positive, even if it was inadvertent.
However, no interpretation was necessary for the positivity Curry provided the Warriors in Tuesday’s game.
Warriors guard Jordan Poole had a solid second half against the Thunder. He was effective in running the offense and was knocking down shots when Curry started the fourth quarter on the bench. Poole gave the Warriors a chance in the game.
“He had it going,” Curry said of Poole.
And Curry wasn’t one to let the good times stop rolling.
The Thunder, like so many teams, used a defense on Tuesday that was built around stopping Curry. They switched everything — they’re built to do that — but the block that is Lu Dort would stay on Curry.
Poole stayed in the game after Curry re-entered the game at 7:24, and on the first play with both players on the court, Poole brought up the ball. A straightforward screen from Green later, Poole had a layup.
That’s all Curry had to see. He knew the best way to score against the Thunder defense was to run the Warriors’ offense through Poole.
“If I set screens, there was going to be an imbalance,” Curry said. “JP took advantage of it.”
The ability to quickly diagnose both OKC’s defense and a Poole heater showed Curry’s incredible awareness and humility.
“It wasn’t like I told Steph anything,” Kerr said. “We just made a couple of play calls where Jordan had the ball, and something good happened, and Steph gave the ball to Jordan and said, ‘You take it.’ He was hot. We just stayed with JP, and Steph was leading the charge on that front.”
How can you not win with a leader like that?
And finally, Moses Moody showed on Thursday that basketball brilliance can still define the future of the Warriors.
The second-year wing hasn’t played much this year, falling in and out of the rotation. It would be easy for him to be frustrated with being on the Warriors. If he were on the Pistons, he’d play 30 minutes a night. No one wants to sit on the bench.
But against the Thunder, Moody’s number was called. The Dubs had two true wings available for the game after Klay Thompson tweaked his lower back before tip.
The Dubs started Anthony Lamb, but he proved ineffective against the Thunder’s athletic team of wings. It was Moody’s time.
And the 20-year-old was splendid. With Andrew Wiggins on the bench, Moody did a solid impression of him over 25 minutes, providing serious energy, positive defense, and three 3-pointers.
Like a 10-year veteran, Moody stayed ready.
It didn’t surprise Kerr or his Warriors’ teammates, though. Behind the scenes, Moody has shown wisdom well beyond his age.
In fact, Moody is so wise that Kerr can’t help but laugh about it.
“When Bob and I talked to him a couple of months ago, and asked him how he was doing with not playing much,” Kerr said. “He said, ‘Look, I chose to develop in the NBA, not at Arkansas… This is part of it.'”
“It’s like the most mature answer I’ve ever heard anybody give, but that’s who he is,” Kerr said with a laugh. “He gets it.”
There’s no higher compliment in the Warriors’ organization.
The Warriors will likely have to win their final two games of the season — Friday at Sacramento and Sunday in Portland — to claim a top-six seed in the Western Conference playoffs and avoid the play-in tournament. At the same time, their odds of winning another title keep shortening with bookies across the country.
That’s because as the games become more significant, there’s a shift in what’s needed to win. This kind of basketball is a thinking man’s game.
And for all their flaws this season, the Warriors showed Tuesday that the team’s roster is still chock-full of such men.
