basketball looks: bullet time with nellie and the warriors
Prompted by Shoals’ re-cognition of Oakland’s complete disregard for a (edited) 67-win season, I felt that the Warriors are having such a good run because they no longer function as an NBA team on the floor.
It’s a team-based interpretation of what Rafer Alston went through in transitioning from high school/street ball, college street/ball to mostly NBA ball. Coming into the league with Milwaukee, there were many times that he would be caught by a ref walking, carrying the ball or something else derived from playing open run on courts without referees. It took him a while to come to two realizations:
1. NBA basketball was now his profession and he had to play that style of basketball to maintain employment.
2. By letting go of the constraints that are mentally attached to a specific style of play, he could be himself and thrive within systems as tight as Pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy’s.
Don Nelson realized how to win a championship after leaving the Mavs, taking some time off and then picking up with the Warriors. He had controlled the Mavericks too tightly and constrained their abilities to his coaching style. Not a square hole, round peg scenario, more like a wooden frame for a velvet elvis.
He realized that he would need to be the frame, but let the players paint their own canvas.
And in doing so, he was able to create a team that let go of their NBA constraints and are playing the game that equals the five of them on the floor, making the best decisions they know how. There are set plays and specific defenses to go along with scouting, but they are tweaks of the dial that bring them to a rolling boil that stays just under the lip of the pot for just so long. Biedrins, Pietrus, and Ellis coming in to temper the mix and counter the desperate substitutions Avery finds himself backed in to.
This is a team that can win because they have an ideology and an exciting minister at the pulpit. This is about everyone subscribing to a common core belief, getting into a frenzy and unleashing it via the ability that nets them millions of fans and dollars. Dallas goes out knowing they’ve been the best and subconsciously saddled with the knowledge that they haven’t beaten the best when it counts and that revenge will unlikely be theirs.
Keep the drums beating, Golden State and they’ll be the backdrop for a rain dance in June.