Given the truth that the three predominant Golden State Warriors gamers — Steph Curry, Draymond Inexperienced and Klay Thompson — have performed simply 11 minutes collectively this season, even NBA specialists don’t know what to make of this crew because the playoffs get underway.
“They haven’t performed collectively,” mentioned longtime NBA coach-turned-analyst Stan Van Gundy. “They've a protracted historical past collectively, nevertheless it’s historic historical past. So that they’re positively a thriller.”
Turner analysts Van Gundy and Greg Anthony spoke to the media on a convention name forward of the NBA playoffs, which begin on Saturday. Each consider the Warriors are nonetheless a great crew, however see flaws of their roster.
“Once you evaluate this crew to their championship runs … they’re not practically pretty much as good defensively as they was,” Anthony mentioned. “They’re not as versatile both as a result of they'll’t play massive.”
That dimension concern will come to the forefront immediately within the first spherical, as reigning MVP Nikola Jokic leads the Nuggets from the middle spot. Van Gundy bluntly mentioned Jokic is “going to be an issue” for the Warriors, however doesn’t assume Denver has sufficient assist across the massive man to essentially exploit the mismatch.
“They’ll wrestle with Jokic, like everyone does. The issue is, Denver doesn’t have sufficient offense round him to beat Golden State,” Van Gundy mentioned. “Curry’s well being is a large a part of it, but when Curry is wholesome and enjoying, I don’t see how Denver could make this a protracted collection — not to mention win it.”
Van Gundy has the Suns as his favourite within the West, however sees the Warriors because the one crew who may problem Phoenix. However he added that it’s solely potential in the event that they shortly return to how they checked out begin to the yr.
“Except they'll get again to that degree — and I discover it laborious to consider they may on this quick period of time — I see Phoenix within the finals,” Van Gundy mentioned.
Anthony didn’t immediately agree with Van Gundy however did notice that the core of the Warriors roster will not be “ascending” anymore. His predominant query for the crew is that if the remainder of the Golden State roster can match the trio’s degree — no matter it now's.
“I don’t assume they’re championship caliber but, however I wouldn’t doubt the idea of their locker room that they'll do it once more,” Anthony mentioned. “These guys are nonetheless nice gamers.”