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SAN FRANCISCO — The Warriors, battered and beaten and down four All-Stars, had nine players in uniform for Monday night’s game against the Blazers.
Seven of those players could be playing in the NBA’s G-League right now. And that’s a conservative estimate.
The average age of both the Warriors’ active roster and starting lineup was 23 years old.
Call them the Baby Dubs.
And they were set to get annihilated.
What else could you have expected? The Blazers had a star point guard and perennial MVP candidate in Damian Lillard, an alleged second All-Star in CJ McCollum, serious playoff aspirations after a trip to the Western Conference Finals last season, and a 12.5-point handicap in Las Vegas.
Portland should have rolled.
Except, well, they didn’t.
In fact, it was the Baby Dubs who wiped the floor with Portland, claiming the Warriors’ first regular-season win at their new arena — Chase Center — in rollicking fashion, 127-118.
Despite being a strange amalgamation of journeymen, rookies, and — let’s be honest — nobodies, the Warriors played with pace, space, confidence, and swagger. They pushed the ball up and then around the court as if they were Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson. It was fast, it was kinetic, it was was quintessential Warriors basketball under Steve Kerr — only with a cast of understudies.
Albeit plucky understudies.
Eric Paschall — a second-round draft pick out of Villanova expected to be a solid but unspectacular role player — scored 34 points and pulled down 13 rebounds on his 23rd birthday Monday.
Rookie Jordan Poole, a shooter devoid of conscience, went 3-for-16 from the floor, but all three of his made baskets were punctuated some smack talk — which likely brought about a cheap shot from Portland’s Rodney Hood.
Ky Bowman — an undrafted rookie free agent on a two-way contract — was feisty and efficient, scoring 19 points on 64 percent shooting, dishing out eight assists, and playing such intense defense – often full-court — that he nearly scuffled with a player more than a foot taller than him.
These Baby Dubs’ devil-may-care youthful energy was fun as hell for the Chase Center crowd and annoying as hell to the Blazers. That’s a downright wonderful combination for entertainment.
Dare I say it?
Yes.
These Warriors were a great time out.
And that has to count for something these days.
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“Just a fantastic effort by the whole group,” Kerr said. “It’s just fun. They’re a fun group to coach because they’re young and hungry and they’re fighting like crazy out there the whole game.”
Now, these Warriors are not the second coming of We Believe. The tank is still on for the Baby Dubs.
The team’s defense remains atrocious, too, Improved from the first few games of the season, yes, but still egregious. Portland missed a ton of wide-open shots on Monday — other teams won’t be so accommodating.
And while Paschall might have looked like an All-Star against the Blazers, it’s fair to say that he isn’t going to knock down four 3-pointers a game moving forward. It was his birthday Monday — the basketball gods smiled on him.
Portland’s loss will put the rest of the league on high alert — you don’t just walk into Chase Center and expect to beat the Baby Dubs! Teams will also start to put together scouting reports on Paschall and his young, unknown gang of rascals, and the stark difference in talent will be more evident moving forward.
The Warriors are going to lose a lot of games this season. Remember the Baby Dubs lost to the Hornets on Saturday and the Hornets are probably the worst team in the league.
But after the injury to Curry (and, if we’re being honest, perhaps, a bit, before it, too), the goal for this season was no longer to win — it was to set the Warriors up for 2020-2021 and beyond. Much like the last San Francisco Giants season, the goal was to find a player or two — amid a morass of unknowns — that could prove to be a building block for next season and beyond.
It’s early days, but Paschall looks better than advertised and it’s hard to say that Bowman isn’t worthy of a full-fledged NBA contract as a backup point guard. Things might be ahead of schedule, even though this wasn’t on the schedule when the season started.
If nothing else, the Warriors can build up some trade value for some of these guys ahead of what should be another wild NBA offseason.
In the meantime, why can’t they be entertaining?
Watching Monday’s game, I kept thinking back to last year’s NBA playoffs. In many ways, a November game in a lost season couldn’t feel more distant from a nationally broadcast playoff game, but I saw so many similarities.
Not between these Warriors and those Warriors, but rather between the Baby Dubs and Golden State’s first-round opponent last season, the Clippers.
That L.A. team was certainly more talented than this current Warriors squad, but I saw the same kind of fight and scrappiness in them. They were both underdogs — big ones — and they embraced that role and used it as a strength.
The Clippers lost that first-round series to the Warriors in six games, but that was two games more than anyone expected them to take from Golden State.
And at the end of the series, Clippers coach Doc Rivers gave the best quote of the season in the NBA:
“I think you could take this team and put it in every NBA city, and when they leave, every NBA city would love this team,” Rivers said. “Because the people who come to games go to work all day. And they love to see players who play like they work.”
“And I thought what the city saw in this team — what I saw in this team — was a hard-hat team that came to work every day. And it doesn’t matter if you’re blue-collar or white-collar — people appreciate workers.”
We’re coming off of at least two, probably three, consecutive Warriors regular seasons where the team didn’t really care. The 82 before the playoffs were treated as perfunctory – something a squad full of superstars had to do for their eight-figure paychecks. Those Warriors still treated fans to some of the best basketball you’ll ever see — they were just that good — but it was clear their heart wasn’t in it. Add in an overly healthy dose of “load management” and by the end of last year’s regular season, it was conditioned — the fans’ hearts weren’t in it, either.
But the Baby Dubs? They have no choice but to play fast and fight for every inch. They’re scrappy. And there’s nothing quite like rooting for an underdog that you know is going put up a real fight, final result be damned.
Again, the Warriors aren’t going to win many games this year, but the ones that they do will feel monumental. There were playoff games over the last few years that felt less eventful, less important, and far less satisfying than Monday’s win.
You have Kerr coaching November games like they’re the NBA Finals, a new player needing to step up every night (baseline competence in numbers?), and more youthful enthusiasm than anyone knows what to do with.
I don’t know if this precociousness will continue or if the energy will wain when D’Angelo Russell — with his slow-motion style of play — re-enters the fold, but no one is quite sure when that day will come.
For now, this team has spirit. Perhaps even the kind of spirit that can pull people out of their bunkers.
“The fight and the fire is what it’s about. You can tell — the crowd got behind them… That’s what fans want to see — they want to see effort,” Kerr said. “Our fans have been treated to an incredible run of basketball… Eventually, you’ve gotta move into a new era. We’d like to bring some of these young guys along so that when we get healthy again we have a deeper roster and some options and some versatility.”
“In the meantime… Let’s win some games.”
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