Warriors' Game 1 victory all about the quiet work of GM Bob Myers
Golden State's Game 1 barrage had nothing to do with the Splash Brothers.
By
Ken Berger
•
4 min read
OAKLAND -- The barrage came early in the fourth quarter, but it was not the kind everyone was expecting.
The Splash Brothers' only role was the same as mine, yours, 19,596 in Oracle Arena and millions watching at home.
Watch and enjoy.
This is not what LeBron James was doing. James was sitting on the scorer's table, desperately waiting for a play stoppage so he could re-enter the game. When Leandro Barbosa darted into the lane and hit a floater to turn what had been a six-point Warriors lead at the end of the third into a 14-point lead in the first 109 seconds of the fourth, James gritted his teeth and grimaced. Really, that was all he could do.
This was a different kind of onslaught from the 73-win Warriors -- not the dizzying, whiplash-inducing 3-point barrage that Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson have perfected. In the Warriors' 104-89 victory over the Cavaliers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night, it wasn't the two-time MVP or his sharp-shooting backcourt mate who did in James and the Cavs.
It was everyone else.
"The first five minutes of the fourth, me and [Klay] were sitting on the bench and those guys went on a huge run," said Curry, who managed only 11 points on 4-for-15 shooting. "They were getting stops and pushing in transition, making timely baskets and keeping our crowd in it. So they were doing their job and doing it top notch."
Something that Curry and Thompson, who combined for 20 points, did not do.
And it didn't matter.
"When you get outscored 45-10 on the bench and give up 25 points off 17 turnovers, no matter what someone does or doesn't do, it's going to be hard to win, especially on the road," said James, whose 23 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists in just under 41 minutes were wasted in Game 1. "It doesn't matter what you do with Steph and Klay; doesn't matter what you do with Draymond [Green]. Give up 45 points off the bench and 25 points off turnovers on the road, it's not a good ingredient to win."
The Cavs had closed a 14-point second-quarter gap to one in the third, and had even taken a one-point lead of their own on three occasions in the closing minutes of that quarter. When it was 56-52 early in the third, Steve Kerr called timeout and destroyed a clipboard with his bare hands.
"He broke a clipboard at Madison Square Garden earlier this year," Green said, "and it didn't go so well. So congratulations to him on doing a better job tonight."
With a six-point lead entering the fourth, Kerr sent Curry and Thompson to the bench with 14 points between them. Onto the floor went Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Barbosa, and two starters, Green and Harrison Barnes. It was a slight adjustment to Kerr's usual rotation, with Green starting the second and fourth quarters instead of Marreese Speights.
Less than a minute into the quarter, Anderson Varejao subbed in for Green.
And the Warriors went bonkers.
Jumpers from Iguodala, Barbosa and Livingston, and the floater from Barbosa. Suddenly, it was 82-68 before Kyrie Irving finally stopped the bleeding with a layup -- but only temporarily. When James finally checked back into the game, the lead was back up to 14 after another jumper from Livingston. It never got to single digits again.
"He's great at just taking our temperature and finding the right matchups for us and putting us in places where we can excel," Livingston, who had 20 points in 26 minutes, said of Kerr.
All told, it was a 21-4 Warriors run going back to the third quarter, with 17 of those points coming from reserves. The unit that did the damage, the one that started the fourth quarter and put a different kind of splash on the Cavs, was riddled with names that GM Bob Myers has acquired in one fashion or another as he's built a reliable -- and, in this case, lethal -- supporting cast for Curry and Thompson.
Barnes and Green came aboard in Myers' first draft as GM. Iguodala came over in a sign-and-trade. Barbosa was brought in as a free agent in 2014 (and again in 2015), and Livingston via the same route in 2014.
This is to say nothing of Andrew Bogut, who was the key to the Warriors coming back from a 3-1 deficit against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference finals; sending Monta Ellis away in a trade for Bogut was Myers' first major move as GM.
"We've talked about our depth for the last two years," Kerr said. "We rely on a lot of people. We play a lot of people, and we feel like we have a lot of talent on the bench that can come in and score when we need it. So it's a great sign that we can win in the Finals without those two guys having big games. But it's not really surprising to us. This has been our team the last couple of years."
Emphasis on team. Which is what the Warriors are, in case anybody forgot.
