坊間好多勇迷HiKERR & 綠CFU
希望佢地及早認清事實
Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press
PHOENIX — Stephen Curry and Draymond Green closing Warriors games in the pick-and-roll have long been coach Steve Kerr’s self-described bread-and-butter, still. On Friday night against the Grizzlies, it showed some of its age.
“It’s still very effective,” Curry told the Chronicle, leaning in the hallway after Golden State’s loss Saturday to the Suns. “But if we had to diagnose it after one game — it was because I missed shots, missed a couple layups, and it was kinda predictable.”
Sometimes predictability is good, sometimes not. The Grizzlies looked like they were all too aware of what was coming late in Golden State’s stunning collapse Friday night. The Warriors went to the Curry-Green two-man game up by eight with roughly 3:30 left, and then again up eight with a little less than three minutes left, and again up four inside two minutes, and again in a tie game inside one minute, and got zero points out of it. Some of it was just missed shots. Some of it was because Memphis center Zach Edey was able to read and react quickly enough to contest.
As Kerr pointed out Saturday, the Warriors can’t simply rely on the Curry-Green pick-and-roll to close night after night, where a 38-year-old guard and 36-year-old big try to make magic with five sets of defensive eyes on them.
“The idea of using the tools you have, the toolkit,” Curry said Saturday. “As you get through the year, you learn what you have, what you don’t have, what works, what doesn’t work.”
And what will work, as Curry believes, is placing the ball in the hands of Yaxel Lendeborg.
“He’s so calm with the ball in his hands, as a playmaker,” Curry told the Chronicle, on Lendeborg. “And he can get schemes going where, you highlight that, and put him in a position to be successful with spacing around him.
“It’s very Jimmy-esque in a way, but a different way,” he continued, referencing the injured Jimmy Butler. “Where he can slow possessions down and create a threat, whether it’s picking on a mismatch or driving the lane with space where nobody can really stay in front of him. And make teams make decisions.”
