The Warriors Won’t Win the NBA Finals with Kevin Durant
Remember when the Golden State Warriors blew that 3-1 lead last summer in the NBA Finals and let LeBron James win his first title with the Cleveland Cavaliers? We love to mention that any chance we get when it makes sense, but we have doubts of this new look Warriors team winning a title this year until they address their front-court. Andrew Bogut was the team’s defensive anchor alongside Draymond Green to help on backdoor screens, pick-and-rolls and stopping LeBron James from having his way in the paint. However, many people forget that when he went down in early in the third quarter of game five, when the Warriors had a lead to close out the series. As you know, Golden State lost the game by 15 points, then the finals and never recovered.
The team soon acquired Kevin Durant in the biggest free agent landing since 2010, but for some reason we’re still not sold on them immediately winning the title this year. Durant is arguably the most non-selfish superstar the league has at the moment and is taking a second seat to Stephen Curry, in what many are calling just a three-year project. Steve Kerr says he plans to rest his players throughout the year and not top their 73-game regular season record last year.
Our concern is purely on the defensive end with this team – as they made frontcourt additions over the summer with Zaza Pachulia, David West, and JaVale McGee. Offensively, this might be the best collection of players from the 1-to-the-4 we’ve ever seen. We’re not worried about Durant fitting in with the team, because their pick-and-roll offense with Draymond Green will have every team not named the Cavaliers struggling to find defenders. And before anyone brings up Curry’s injury, he was hurt through the majority of playoffs, and was still making those impossible shots we all love.
The unanimous MVP’s costly turnovers in game 7 stood out to us more than the stop-block-shot from Cleveland. So, there will be no excuse next year if they’re unable to win in year-one.