Warriors try to overcome image as 'soft' opponent

OAKLAND - Klay Thompson, the Warriors reported late Friday morning, has officially been diagnosed with a concussion and must be cleared by team medical staff before he is allowed to take the floor again.

His partner in the Golden State backcourt, Stephen Curry, bruised his head in a frightening fall in Game 4 of the Western Conference final and started Game 5 on Wednesday with a protective sleeve on his right arm.

Backup swingman Andre Iguodala nearly had his arm pulled from the shoulder socket fighting through a Dwight Howard screen in Game 5, and center Andrew Bogut narrowly avoided an elbow to the face from Howard, the Houston big man, in Game 4.

The Warriors survived all of it with little difficulty, downing the Rockets in five games, and are moving on to the NBA Finals for the first time in 40 years. So can we finally recognize this team for its toughness?

Nope, probably not.

“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do about that,” small forward Harrison Barnes said Friday as the Warriors began preparation for the Cleveland Cavaliers. “We’ve always just been considered soft just because we shoot jump shots. I think hopefully now we’re in the finals, we’ve proved that we can play with the tough teams.”

We shall see if the world is convinced. Even recently, as the Warriors logged the best record in the NBA (67-15) and led the league in both defensive rating (an estimated 101.4 points allowed per 100 possessions) and opponents’ field-goal percentage (42.8), prominent analysts vaguely characterized them as soft.

“They’re a terrific team, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t put fear in your heart,” Charles Barkley said after a Warriors victory in the first-round series against New Orleans. “That’s the problem they’re gonna have.”

But Golden State hasn’t had significant problems in this postseason, winning 12 of 15 games and outrebounding the opponent in each of its three series thus far. The Warriors are heavy favorites to beat the Cavaliers and wear the crown as 2015 NBA champions.

Of course, even winning and rebounding well might not be enough to dispose of the “soft” label. Certainly, it looked like the Rockets were intent on pushing the Warriors and seeing whether they’d push back.

Bogut called it a ‘ducking and weaving and getting out of the way of errant fists and elbows’ series.

It’s interesting to note that Cleveland’s best player - indeed, the world’s best player, LeBron James, has spent much of his career ducking the same label. No one questions James’ physical power, but even after two NBA championships and five previous trips to the finals, there are those who question his toughness.

Most would agree, though, that the Cavaliers, like the Warriors, have proved their mettle in this postseason.

The Cavs have gotten a huge boost from third-year player Tristan Thompson, who has taken over the starting power forward job since Kevin Love dislocated his shoulder in a first-round series against Boston, and has emerged as a rebounding machine. And they are more pugnacious with Russian center Timofey Mogzov, acquired via trade in the offseason.

And then there is Matthew Dellavedova, the Australian transplant and former St. Mary’s star who has gone from lovable overachiever to thug in the span of a couple weeks.

During these playoffs, Dellavedova locked his legs around the leg of Chicago’s Taj Gibson after getting pushed to the ground; ended the season of Atlanta sharpshooter Kyle Korver during a collision as they went for a loose ball and so incensed the Hawks’ Al Horford by falling into his legs that the center threw an elbow and got ejected.

Bogut, for one, doesn’t see his acquaintance and fellow Aussie as a menace.

“You’ve gotta know going into a game against a guy like that you can’t go in half-hearted,” Bogut said of Dellavedova. “Any 50-50 loose balls, he’s gonna dive into whatever he has to to get it. So a guy you love to play with, I guess, and hate to play against. But I don’t think he’s dirty by any means.”

Either way, don’t expect any backing down in the finals when they begin here on Thursday. Guys like Bogut and scrappy forward Draymond Green have been doing their best to reshape the Warriors’ finesse-first image, and James and Thompson are doing the same for Cleveland.

Golden State coach Steve Kerr, who played in 128 postseason games and five NBA Finals over 15 seasons in the league, expects the chippiness to build over the course of the series with the Cavaliers.

“It has to do with styles, but I think in general each individual series tends to get more physical as you go,” Kerr said. “Game 1 maybe isn’t as physical as Game 5 or 6 because the teams become more and more familiar with each other. After a while, you don’t really like seeing the guy across from you.”

Curry noted that opponents tend to bump and push him more if he gets a hot shooting touch, hoping to disrupt his rhythm. The same goes for Thompson - and for the Warriors’ opponents, for that matter.

But really, the physical nature of the NBA playoffs has less to do with strategy than with what’s at stake.

“I think it’s just more intense,” Barnes said. “The gravity of each possession and each play, and just little runs, all that kind of stuff, it means so much more because it’s the final stage. It’s not like, oh, you get another do-over chance. One game can shoot the whole series.”

And one guy knocked to the floor can set the tone. Both these teams know that, and each fully believes it’s tough enough to win an NBA championship.

You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.