SAN FRANCISCO – Basketball is often lauded as a game of skill.
Gifted ball-handlers jet through the open court. Talented shooters turn slivers of space into spectacular shots. Deft passers transform slight openings into assists.
The Warriors, at their best, have turned hoops into an art form. But as the Blazers showed in their 127-123 victory over Golden State at Chase Center on Friday night, sometimes the most effective tactic in basketball is the simplest.
Being tall and being fast can be just as un-guardable as the most intricate play. Might can sometimes make right.
The Warriors, missing Al Horford (hamstring tightness) in the fourth quarter, were pounded on the boards. They surrendered 21 offensive rebounds and a whopping 28 second-chance points.
“So we know we’re small out there at times, but we got to play bigger than we are,” said the 6-3 Steph Curry, who often played next to 6-3 Brandin Podziemski and the 6-2 Gary Payton II.
Quinten Post, Draymond Green and the rest of the Warriors bigs were unable to corral the 7-3 Donovan Clingan and the 6-11 Robert Williams as Golden State fell to 9-9.
Fuming from the podium, Warriors coach Steve Kerr bluntly assessed what went wrong.
“That’s the game,” Kerr said of the 21 offensive rebounds. “A lot of them turned into 3-pointers … 28-10 second chance points. So that’s the game. They’re an athletic team, even missing a couple of their guys, they’re super-athletic. They crash and put a lot of pressure on us.”
The visiting Blazers were missing every guard but benchwarmers Caleb Love and Rayan Rupert.
The Warriors probably wished Jrue Holliday and Shaedon Sharpe were available. Instead, they had to contend with an endless wave of 6-foot-7 athletic wings, and Golden State did not handle it well.
The Warriors tried 6-7 Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green at power forward at times, and neither Post nor Horford, now considered day-to-day, were particularly imposing in the middle.
Undersized and old, the Warriors deficit in the size and athleticism categories were starkly apparent, especially as Jonathan Kuminga missed his fifth game in a row.
The Warriors entered the game ranked 21st in rebounds per game. They were outrebounded 52-32, but the issues went beyond Golden State just being smaller than the super-sized Blazers.
“We’re just not guarding anybody, and from what I can tell, that’s never been the formula here to win a championship,” Butler said. “You’ve got to take each and every matchup personal.”
Getting beat off the dribble meant bigs had to help off their man, which left the team susceptible to offensive rebounds. Kerr hoped that a few good days of practice will help solve some of those issues. Because of the team playing 17 games in the first 29 days of the season, the Warriors have not been able to practice more than a few times.
Now, the schedule lightens up. Five games in 12 days, and ample time to focus on the little things.
Will that make much of a difference? That remains to be seen, and it will not be the only part of the Warriors short-term plan that changes before the Warriors take on Utah, Houston and New Orleans this week.
“We’ll think about going back to Quinten (Post) to get more size out there, that’s a definite possibility,” Kerr said. “We’ll just have to get a good guage on our team here during this coming week, watch the film and see if that’s something we want to do.”