Coach Steve Kerr's postgame press comments after losses in the wobbly start to the season for the Golden State Warriors tended to be reassuring variations of "we'll work this out" and "we'll figure this out." After last night's loss at Phoenix, which wasted a highly efficient 50 points by Steph Curry, and which at least one commentator called the team's worst performance of the season," Kerr was succinct and direct. "Steph played well, nobody else did."
It wasn't a cohesive team effort, he said, but more of a pick-up game. Again, the Warriors were overrun on defense, committed too many fouls and didn't rebound. Teams look forward to playing the Warriors now, he said.
Much of what Kerr identified can be seen as products of effort and concentration. Players, Kerr implied, seemed to have things on their mind other than playing winning basketball. These things are fixable. Playing in the playoffs from beginning to end is like playing an extra half season, but at a sustained high level. The roller coaster year that led to a championship, the summer of release, the increased off-court commitments and opportunities, the readjustments to normal life (and/or to new contracts)--all may play a part, even though the starting five is the still the standout unit of the league.
Also fixable are the growing pains of the younger players, though every young player is a gamble that might or might not pay off, this year or any other. These growing pains have been what many have pointed to, including Kerr and others associated with the Warriors, as the chief reason for the second unit problems of giving away leads. Kerr said several times that he's still looking for the right configurations of players, the right rotations.
But there is concern that the woes being revealed aren't fixable with the Warriors' current roster. Analysts with much deeper knowledge of the technicalities of defense in particular suggest that the team failed to compensate for the skills lost when Gary Payton II and Otto Porter, Jr. departed after the championships season. Not just their experience or specific skills, but their physical size and abilities.
Time will tell, but this element of doubt is now part of the mix.
