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"It's the real NBA." The summary of the three Golden State Warriors defeats by Steve Kerr during the recent road trip to Texas may well be the quote from the opening stanza of this season. Breaking the iconic Steph Curry – and most recently Draymond Green, but for its part, the team that is arguably the biggest in the history of the competition has, for once, seemed deadly.
"We have not been in the real NBA in recent years," continued the coach after his loss to the San Antonio Spurs. "We are in this dream and we are now facing real adversity – and we have to get by ourselves." After the Oklahoma City thunder hit, he recorded four setbacks without previous (the worst of Kerr's untouchable period), but the Warriors awoke according to their requirements wins the Sacramento and Orlando Magic Kings, after which they occupy a modest fourth place in the Western Conference .
The fourth quarter push led by Kevin Durant led to a win on Monday night against an improvement – but still modest – Magic, who had gained 17 points at half-time, was exciting but was not the type from the regular season effort Warriors are used to having to use. Their trademark since the arrival of Kerr in 2014 has brutalized the opposition in the third quarter, before getting noticed in the fourth.
Curry is expected to make his comeback this week on the team's next five-game trip to the East – which will culminate with a trip to Wisconsin to face Milwaukee Bucks. Green, who presumably would play with his foot injury at a crucial point in the season, was also missed. Losing those two would hinder any team.
Even more disturbing is the perception of internal anxiety, centered mainly on a dramatic fall between Durant and Green at the end of regulation time when AT lost to the Los Angeles Clippers fifteen years ago. days. The former was annoyed by the fact that the latter had not played in a winning basket in the last game, being alone and dispossessed, and let him know. Green reacted with enough ferocity that once the dust settled, he was suspended by the organization for a match "for detrimental behavior to the team".
It was certainly not an everyday tiff, even for someone as nervous as Green. YahooChris Haynes said he called Durant "bitch" several times, and said, "We do not need you. We won without you. Probably the most hurt Durant was that Green is right in saying he does not "need" to win. The warriors have already shown that they could be the best without him. The difference between them with and without KD is between being the best and being unbeatable in the part of the season that matters.
Durant is nothing but a cherry on the cake of the champions, it's a beard that follows him since the minute he started the Thunder franchise in summer 2016 to join a team that does not was not a champion, but was clearly the best. If the famous "cupcake" of Russell Westbrook, his ex-partner in crime, would have irritated a photo taken from the inside of the tent, it's quite another thing, especially when Green is the spiritual soul of the Warriors. It was Green who opened the way when the big players on the team did their best to recruit Durant for a weekend in the Hamptons two years ago.
Now, we feel that the Warriors are about to recruit Durant again, which came to mind when the wounded Green, dressed in his street clothes, wildly celebrated Durant's latest explosion to defeat the Magic at edge of the court. Many believe that Durant should be seen, at least alongside LeBron James, because the league's biggest player is a daunting challenge: to make things move for a current no-hope, like the New York Knicks, rather than a dominant force.
Nobody likes uncertainty, but that's what the Warriors have to face when Durant and the fierce shooter Klay Thompson head to free will in 2019. The clues are Green, whose contract expires in 2020, n is not inclined to accept a new contract below the maximum. The Warriors, who will be relocating from Oakland to the Chase Center in San Francisco next season (and will have to pay a $ 40 million bill to upgrade the arena Arena they are leaving), will struggle to keep the superteam together.
Maybe we are just trying to convince us of the vulnerability because we want to believe in the emotion of the pursuit, rather than a procession to another inevitable championship. Maybe warriors are even happy to have it that way. Kerr's comments about his team being in the "real" had a little hard, maybe an attempt to sting the bear. After breaking the record of 73 wins in the regular season against the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016 after breaking the established record of 72 by Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls in 1996, there is a sense that the coach, staff and the players would like to stay as far away from the record hunt for the regular season as possible.
The NBA is "real" for the other teams at the moment, with the Houston Rockets (who have compiled the best record of the regular season of the West in 17-18 and took the Warriors to seven games in the final of the Conference Western) in difficulty and the Boston Celtics largely Expected to dominate the East after the return of Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, cruelly lacking in chemistry. Unless of a long-term injury, Warriors who join forces in the spring are as badured as the next night. The real question is how long can they keep for the dynasty?
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