Barber: Playoff stars aligning for Warriors

OAKLAND

I write with bad news for 29 NBA teams, and for their fans, and for people who bet on them to win the 2019 championship. It pains me to deliver this news. I know the league is more interesting, and more exciting, when the trophy is up for grabs, and there were moments this season when that seemed a possibility. Not now.

The NBA regular season wraps up Wednesday. The playoffs begin Saturday. It’s money time. And everything is aligning for the Golden State Warriors to lay waste to the competition again.

Compare the situation to one year ago. Most everyone considered the Warriors huge favorites in 2018, too, but they weren’t demonstrating it in early April. They went 7-10 over their final 17 games last regular season, and lost three of their final four. Some of the defeats were gruesome. They lost by 20 points at Indiana, and by 40 at Utah in the final game on the schedule. The whole team looked dispirited and out of sync, and coach Steve Kerr was openly exasperated.

“Last year we weren’t healthy,” Kerr said before a game against the Nuggets on Tuesday. “Steph (Curry) was injured, missed the last, whatever it was - 17 games, I think. This year we’re healthy. So to me, we’re in a much better position this year than we were a year ago. The other thing that happened a year ago is we were out of the race for the 1 seed at this stage. We knew we were gonna be the 2 for probably the last 15 games of the year, and maybe more. So we didn’t have as much to play for.”

Kerr added: “I feel much better this year about everything than I did a year ago.”

His math was almost right. Curry missed the final 16 games of 2017-18 (plus the first six playoff contests), and played just 2 minutes during the game in which he sprained his ankle, at home against the Spurs on March 8.

As we all know, the Warriors are not truly the Warriors when Curry isn’t on the court. But his bum ankle wasn’t the only factor. Kevin Durant missed six games in March of 2018, too. Klay Thompson missed eight, and Draymond Green four. Andre Iguodala missed three in early March, then sat out the final six games of the regular season.

The Warriors were battered. And having breezed through the playoffs the preceding year, they appeared to be bored with their preparation in 2018.

It feels a lot different this time around. The Warriors have won six of their previous seven games heading into Sunday night’s tilt against the Clippers, and the one failure was a controversially refereed overtime loss at Minnesota.

Beyond their recent scores, there are other signs pointing in the right direction for the Warriors.

One is DeMarcus Cousins. Golden State’s 6-foot-11, 270-pound center might be the largest thing ever viewed under the lens of a microscope. The sports world has watched Cousins’ every move this season - his grueling rehab from Achilles’ surgery, his sparkling Warriors debut, his regression as opponents began to attack him in the pick-and-roll. And, lately, his frequent domination of the post.

Cousins scored a season-high 28 points to go with his 13 rebounds and five assists against Denver on Tuesday, thoroughly outplaying the Nuggets’ All-Star center, Nikola Jokic (10 points, five rebounds, six turnovers). Cousins’ best game in March was against the Rockets and their active center, Clint Capela. You sense that he relishes the challenge of a marquee matchup inside. The Warriors should be seeing several of those in the upcoming playoffs.

“He kind of go at every guy,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said of Cousins after that Denver game. “Since his injury, a lot of people try to put some guys before him, and he go at every one of them. It’s personal for him.”

Cousins is still auditioning for a big payday in free agency this summer. And remember, he has never played in the postseason. By almost any metric, he is the greatest NBA player ever to make that “claim.” Imagine how fired up Cousins will be to face San Antonio’s LaMarcus Aldridge or Oklahoma City’s Steven Adams in ?the first round.

Here’s something else trending upward for the Warriors: Curry can see now. Not to overemphasize whatever visual impairment had been affecting Curry, but he acknowledged to the Athletic recently that he has begun to wear contact lenses during games. So yeah, the greatest shooter in the history of basketball should be a tad better in the 2019 playoffs, as he’s now seeing one basket instead of two.

The biggest advantage for the Warriors this year? They have put themselves in position to string a hammock to give guys some R&R over the next few days.

As Kerr noted, his team was more or less locked into the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference a year ago. But all those injuries created an all-hands-on-deck situation.

Barring a significant injury this week, the Warriors are in much better shape in 2019. They have been dueling Denver for the No. 1 seed for most of the season.

Last Tuesday’s result all but ended the race, giving the Warriors a two-game lead that is really more like a three-game lead because they own the tiebreaker, having won the head-to-head season series.

The Nuggets have stayed just close enough to give the Warriors some incentive to stay focused, and just far enough back to ease the mental strain. Kerr couldn’t have lined it up any better.

Of course, not everyone believes rest is a necessary ingredient in a successful postseason.

“It’s just basketball. What else we gotta do?” Durant said at practice last week. “I ain’t got nothing else to do in my life at this point but play ball.”

Asked to elaborate on his game-day routine, Durant said, “I go to practice. I wake up like two hours before practice. I come in like an hour before. And then I go home right afterwards and sit on the couch all day till the next morning. So do that until I’m done playing. Pretty simple.”

Kerr might not be so blasé. He has seen the Warriors when they are shorthanded, or when they are exhausted, and it hasn’t always been pretty. Golden State will finish the season with a rough back-to-back at New Orleans and Memphis on Tuesday and Wednesday, Kerr would love nothing more than to sit next to many of his key players on the bench for most or all of those games.

So yes, NBA challengers, the news from Oakland is all bad. The Warriors staggered into the playoffs last year and found a way to survive. This year they are relaxed, healthy and hungry for a three-peat. I’d like to tell you the title is in doubt in 2019. But I’m sworn to accuracy.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.