Congrats to Bosk1 and Golden State!
Awesome. But don't congratulate
me. I've made no bones about the fact that I am not a long-time Warriors fan. I can't claim this as "my team." I just enjoy watching them do what they do, the way that they do it.
As far as the game itself, it is interesting to look at the box score this morning. As I was replaying certain aspects of the game on my drive in this morning, I realized that I could name only 5 bench players from the Warriors that I remembered seeing in the game, with one of them, Matt Barnes, only making a VERY brief appearance. I checked as soon as I got into work, and sure enough, Kerr only played 5 guys off the bench last night, with Matt Barnes only getting 1 minute (another interesting thing is that Iguodala played almost as many minutes as the 4 starters not named Pachulia, and 4 guys off the bench had as many or substantially more minutes than Pachulia did).
Looking at the Cavs, similar story for them. Only 4 bench guys played. Good production and time for 3 of them. Only 4 minutes and no points from Shumpert.
Really nice to see some of those old veterans the Warriors brought in be able to contribute throughout the season and earn a championship ring. David West as been a consistent force this season on both ends of the floor. Barnes was part of the Warriors' old guard years ago, and his career was basically over, so really nice to see him come back to his old team and contribute solid defense to keep them in games when the starters needed a break throughout the year. Great to see McGee needing a second chance and able to come into a team and thrive as he did this season. Is he the answer at center for next year if they don't keep Pachulia?
Then the young guys, McAdoo, Clark, and McCaw... McCaw seems to be the one that rose up and began to pull away from the crowd in the playoffs. Really nice to see Kerr trust him enough to give him solid minutes in a pivotal game, and to see him rise to the challenge and make solid contributions. But all three of these guys are developing nicely. I hope they find a way to keep them all.
And I mentioned Pachulia above, but I actually kinda felt bad for him during the finals. The last two games, especially, the Cavs were able to exploit him as the weak link on the floor quite often and force him into dumb mistakes. It's a shame, because you could tell that he felt bad, and his teammates even got on him a couple of times, and that overshadowed some nice contributions in terms of some of the really nice picks he set to free up others on the floor, and some of the rebounding he did. He's definitely not the best center out there, but he does some pretty nice things and has generally contributed what the W's needed him to contribute this year. Interesting to see whether they keep him around.
Lastly, I think Klay Thompson deserves a lot more praise than perhaps his numbers garner him. He is such a valuable, and yet frequently unsung, part of this team. He got scored on A LOT these last two games. But virtually every possession where he was matched up one-on-one against one of the Cavs' best players, I felt good about the matchup. And even though he got scored on pretty frequently, he made his guy work HARD for the shot, almost always having to throw up a contested, high difficulty shot. If guys are going to make those anyway, what more can you do? As Mark Jackson said often during the series, if a guy is going to make that kind of shot on that kind of quality defense, you live with it. If Thompson is your "weak link" on D that is getting scored on the most, I think just about any team would be content with that.
Anyway, good series, despite the really poor officiating souring it substantially.
Topic: NBA thread 2016-17 v. The Age of The Land? (Read 57429 times)
