Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, nearing breaking point, sound alarm about Warriors originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – After the Warriors faded down the stretch Wednesday night, trudging into the locker room wearing a 104-100 loss to the Houston Rockets, Jimmy Butler III cleared his throat and spat out flames.
“We don’t box out,” Butler said. “We don’t go with the scouting report. We let anybody do whatever they want. Open shots, get into the paint, free throws. It’s just sad.”
A few minutes later, Draymond Green came along, throwing another level of heat directed at the play of the Warriors this season – again directed at the defense.
“Our defense is s—t,” Green said. “Because it’s not necessarily the numbers. How do you feel when you out there? And it’s just letdown after letdown. It’s bigger than the numbers, you know what I’m saying? Defense is about demeanor. If there’s letdown after letdown, then it kills your demeanor, it kills your bravado, then you’re just a soft team.
“It’s bigger than the numbers. Like, what does the other team feel when you’re defending them? And right now, they don’t feel no force. Even if you’re getting stops. Yeah, we got great coaches, we gon’ have a good scheme. But what about the force? We don’t have that.”
The Warriors, at least the accomplished veterans, don’t like the product they’re delivering to themselves and their fans. They came to training camp with visions of making one more run toward a championship, coming together to earn a fifth ring for Stephen Curry and Green, a first for Butler and a second for first-year Warrior Al Horford.
But 20 games into the season, the Warriors keep circling the block instead of marching toward their goal. Progress, regression, progress, regression. They return to the same place, profoundly displeased with their inability to cross the street and make real strides.
Standing in the locker room, Butler pointed at the cloth covering the board where the game plan and scouting reports are posted and defended the work of coach Steve Kerr and his staff, blowing off the notion of Kerr pointing the finger at himself.
“I just think we need to do what we’re supposed to, be out there doing as players,” Butler said. “I don’t care what Steve says. It’s not on him, and it’s not on the coaches. Y’all can’t see (the board), but it’s back there somewhere. Yeah, they write everything up there for us to do, and they put us in the position to be successful. We go over it the day before, the day of. We got to go out there and execute, man.
“So don’t listen to Steve. And he said, ‘This is on me,’ and he got to be better. Nah, it’s on these guys around this locker room.”
This is not the first time this season that Butler and Green have pointed out the team’s recurring inadequacies. They raised similar issues 16 days ago after the Warriors were blown out by the Thunder in Oklahoma City. Golden State’s record was 6-6 after that loss, and it is 4-4 since.
Circling the block.
Some of Golden State’s defensive statistics seem which seem acceptable, ranking 10th in defensive rating. Other statistics, not so much. The Warriors are 15th in field-goal percentage defense and 22nd in rebounding, both of which are central components of defense.
Butler and Green look beyond the numbers, and peer into the team’s overall disposition. How does it respond to even the slightest adversity? They don’t like what they see.
“When we’re making shots, we’re celebrating, we’re cheering,” Butler said. “We’re doing all those things. When we’re not and when the game’s not going our way, we put our head down and we mope. And then we don’t box out, we don’t get back, we foul, we do all the bad things.
“When it’s going good – you know, some people call it front-running – but when it’s going good, it’s all smiles.”
There were no smiles among the Warriors late Wednesday night. The locker room, rollicking on Monday, was dissatisfied and somber, partly because they lost a home game in which they held a 12-point lead at the half and partly because Stephen Curry left in the fourth quarter with a right quad contusion.
The Warriors have been better with Curry (9-7) than without him (1-3), but five weeks into the season, they’ve yet to sustain the slightest whisper of momentum.
How do the Warriors break this chain of futility?
“It requires individuals, all of us, as individuals, to take on your challenge,” Green said. “If you take on your challenge, then we can make the team thing work. The only way the team thing works is if we take on the individual challenge.
“And right now, we are individually – and I know everybody likes to twist words – we are individually f—ing awful.”
The Warriors are not bleeping awful by NBA standards; 17 teams have better a record, 12 are worse. They are, in certain aspects, deeply awful by the standard set by Curry and Green and expected by Butler.
When the vets spoke up two weeks ago, there was a welcome response. The Warriors won three in a row. And now, once again, the vets are speaking up, this time a bit louder.
Is anybody listening?
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