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Pacific Notes: Bridges, Curry, Payton, Lakers

March 22nd, 2022 at 11:36am CST by Luke Adams

Centers have dominated the NBA’s list of Defensive Player of the Year winners over the years, but Suns head coach Monty Williams and star guard Devin Booker believe forward Mikal Bridges has been the best defensive player in the league this season, as Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports relays (Twitter links).

“He should be the Defensive Player of the Year, number one,” Williams said, noting that Bridges has taken on the toughest defensive assignments for the Suns while playing heavy minutes (35.3 MPG without missing a game).

Rudy Gobert is a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate, but voter fatigue could work against the Jazz center, who has won the award in three of the last four seasons. Currently, Heat big man Bam Adebayo is considered the betting favorite by BetOnline.ag and Bovada.lv, with Bridges lurking among the top challengers.

Here are a few more notes from around the Pacific:

Reports have indicated that the Warriors are optimistic Stephen Curry will return from his foot injury by the time the playoffs begin next month, and Curry confirmed on Sunday that’s the plan. “Yeah, we’ve got enough time for that … but I’m an optimist,” Curry told reporters, including Joe Stiglich of The Associated Press. Curry added that he didn’t view the Marcus Smart dive that caused his injury as “malicious or dirty.”
Warriors guard Gary Payton II, who initially hoped to return on Sunday from a left knee injury, remained sidelined for that game, but is no longer listed on the injury report and will play on Tuesday in Orlando, tweets Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Payton has missed the team’s last eight games.
Although it has been a disappointing season overall for the Lakers, LeBron James was in good spirits after leading the club to a 131-120 over his old team in Cleveland on Monday night, writes Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “I’m literally having the time of my life right now,” James said after the game. “… Because I couldn’t care less what the narrative about our team is. At my point in my career, I don’t get involved in that stuff. I don’t read about it, I don’t hear it too much. … None of that stuff matters to me, I’m having a blast playing the game of basketball.”
The Lakers, who won in Toronto on Friday and Cleveland on Monday, appear to finally be gaining some confidence, according to Bill Oram of The Athletic, who explores whether fans should have any faith in L.A. to make some noise in the play-in tournament and the playoffs.

Pacific Notes: Suns, Biyombo, Westbrook, Poole

March 20th, 2022 at 6:53pm CST by JD Shaw

The Suns are surging despite missing star point guard Chris Paul (thumb fracture), going 9-4 in the games they’ve played without him, Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic writes. Phoenix owns the league’s best record at 57-14, leading the second-place Grizzlies by 8.5 games.

“We know how talented this team is and we always pride ourselves on that,” Devin Booker said. “I always say nobody can replace what Chris does out there. We know how much we’re going to need him when it comes into this playoff run, but in the meantime, we’re just trying to hold it down.”

Phoenix is coming off its first NBA Finals appearance since 1993. The team lost to Milwaukee in six games, but it kept most of its core for this season. It has the chemistry, motivation and talent to make a title run — though it’ll be important to have a fully healthy team.

Here are some other notes from the Pacific:

Michael Scotto of HoopsHype hosted a Q&A with Suns center Bismack Biyombo, who discussed how and why he’s donating his salary, why he fits in well with the team, and several other topics. Biyombo signed a 10-day hardship deal with Phoenix in January, impressing the club enough to earn a rest-of-season commitment. The 11-year veteran has averaged 6.1 points and 4.7 rebounds in 14.1 minutes per game.
The Lakers embraced Russell Westbrook‘s feel-good moment in Toronto, rallying behind him after he helped the team earn an overtime win on Friday with a game-tying three-pointer at the end of regulation, Kyle Goon of the Orange County Register writes. “One of the highlights of our season – and it’s been a tough season for us, and specifically for him,” head coach Frank Vogel said. Contrary to public perception, Westbrook’s shooting percentages have only dipped slightly from last season, but his 15.7 shot attempts per game represent his lowest mark since 2009/10.
Warriors guard Jordan Poole is proving he’s ready for the NBA spotlight, Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area writes. Poole is averaging a career-best 17.1 points on 46% shooting this season, establishing himself as a valuable scoring threat in his third season.

Warriors To Reevaluate Stephen Curry In Two Weeks

March 18th, 2022 at 2:59pm CST by Luke Adams

After reports on Thursday indicated that star guard Stephen Curry had suffered a sprained ligament in his left foot and would be out indefinitely, the Warriors confirmed that injury diagnosis today.

The team stated in a brief press release that Curry will be reevaluated in two weeks, which suggests he’ll be sidelined for at least the rest of March. Golden State has seven games during that stretch and will have just five contests left in the regular season by the time Curry is reassessed.

The 47-23 Warriors are, of course, in no danger of losing their playoff spot, and still seem relatively likely to hold onto a top-three seed, since they have a 3.5-game lead over the No. 4 Jazz.

Still, it’s an unfortunate turn of events for a team that just got Draymond Green back on Monday following a 29-game absence and has had Klay Thompson miss so much time since 2019. The Warriors’ three stars have shared the court for just 11 minutes so far this season and it appears they won’t do so again until either the final week of the regular season or the postseason.

As long as Curry remains on the shelf, the Warriors will likely lean more heavily on Jordan Poole, with Gary Payton II poised to immediately reclaim a regular backcourt role upon his return from a knee injury. Two-way player Chris Chiozza could also see a little action in a reserve role.

Gary Payton II Plans To Return Sunday For Warriors

March 17th, 2022 at 2:21pm CST by Rory Maher

Warriors guard Gary Payton II plans to return on Sunday versus San Antonio, sources tell Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Payton has been sidelined since March 3 with left knee soreness, having missed the team’s last seven games.

Payton, 29, is one of the NBA’s premier defensive players. He’s averaging 1.4 steals in just 17.1 minutes per night, a rate of 3.0 per 36 minutes. His 4.0 steal percentage is the top mark in the league (minimum 1,000 minutes played).

An outstanding athlete, Payton is able to guard multiple positions with his long arms and strong frame. Through 60 games (14 starts), he’s averaging 7.1 points and 3.4 rebounds on .618/.364/.574 shooting.

Payton’s return is welcome news for the Warriors, who could be without two-time MVP Stephen Curry for most or all of the remainder of the regular season. Payton will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.

Stephen Curry Out Indefinitely With Foot Injury

March 17th, 2022 at 11:22am CST by Luke Adams

11:22am: There’s optimism that Curry will be able to return to action by the time the playoffs start in mid-April, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne. Curry is expected to consult with specialists for further evaluation of his injured left foot.

10:41am: Wednesday night’s MRI revealed a sprained ligament in Curry’s left foot, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link), who reports that the All-Star guard will be sidelined indefinitely.

X-rays on the foot were negative, so there’s no fracture, Charania adds.

7:13am: After exiting Wednesday’s loss to Boston in the second quarter due to left foot soreness, Warriors star Stephen Curry underwent an MRI on the foot, writes Kendra Andrews of ESPN.

The Warriors have yet to clarify whether they expect Curry to miss time. As Andrews notes, head coach Steve Kerr simply told reporters after Wednesday night’s game that they’d know more once they get the results of the MRI.

Curry’s injury occurred when he and Celtics guard Marcus Smart battled for a loose ball, with Smart rolling into Curry’s leg when he dove to try to corral it (video link). Kerr, who was seen yelling at Smart, took exception to what he considered a “dangerous” play.

“I thought Marcus dove into Steph, and that’s what I was upset about,” Kerr said, per Andrews. “A lot of respect for Marcus. He’s a hell of a player, a gamer, a competitor. I coached him in the World Cup a few summers ago. We talked after the game and we’re good. But I thought it was a dangerous play.”

Smart said after the game that the contact was unintentional and that he was just trying to “make a play” for his team. Curry’s teammate Draymond Green said Smart’s dive was “maybe unnecessary,” but dismissed the idea that it was a dirty play.

Curry, who initially tried to walk off the injury, eventually exited to the locker room and was ruled questionable to return for the second half. He was subsequently ruled out. We’ll have to wait for the Warriors to reveal the results of the MRI to see whether Curry will miss any additional action for a Golden State squad battling for playoff positioning.

Warriors Notes: Curry, Green, Wiseman, Looney, Kerr

March 15th, 2022 at 10:09am CST by Luke Adams

Warriors star Stephen Curry went off for 47 points in Monday’s win over Washington, his second-highest point total of the season and his highest single-game mark since Draymond Green went down with a back injury in early January. After the game, head coach Steve Kerr said there was “100 percent” a correlation between Green’s return on Monday and Curry’s big night, according to Kendra Andrews of ESPN.

“It changed for Steph right away, as soon as Draymond got out there,” Kerr said. “The chessboard changes with Draymond out there. With Steph, everything looks and feels a little bit different.”

Curry and Green only shared the court for 15 minutes, but Green’s impact on the former MVP was immediately apparent. Curry poured in 41 of his 47 points with Green on the court, scoring just six points on 3-of-9 shooting in the 20 minutes he played without him.

“When I’m not out there and when I’m watching, I see things that can be done that can help him out,” Green said, per Andrews. “He’s the greatest shooter we’ve ever seen. But you still have to screen, and you still have to find him in good spots and make sure he gets good shots and easy looks as opposed to tough looks all the time.”

Here’s more on the Warriors:

Prior to Monday’s game, Kerr told reporters that Green won’t be in the starting lineup for his first few games back, per Andrews. The former Defensive Player of the Year will also be restricted to about 20-to-23 minutes per game for the next week or two, and he’s OK with that. “I’m usually against any restrictions. I hate them,” Green said. “… (But) I am actually very inviting of it this time around. I know I need it. I know I need them to protect me from myself.”
After playing with the Santa Cruz Warriors on Thursday and Sunday, second-year center James Wiseman will play another G League game on Tuesday, tweets Anthony Slater of The Athletic. According to Kerr, the team hasn’t made any further decisions on Wiseman, who is working his way back from knee surgery.
Green’s return will likely cut into Kevon Looney‘s playing time, but Looney’s importance to the organization has never been felt more than it has this season, writes Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic. As Thompson details, Looney has made a major impact both on the court – with Green and Wiseman unavailable for much of the season – and off it, with teammates like Jordan Poole praising the big man’s veteran leadership.
Tim Kawakami of The Athletic explores how Kerr has gotten creative managing the Warriors’ rotation this season while incorporating rookies and dealing with injuries and slumps, noting that the veteran head coach will have an increasing number of options available to him as the team gets healthier.

Warriors Notes: Curry, Thompson, Veterans, Make-Up Game

March 6th, 2022 at 8:56am CST by Arthur Hill

The season is unraveling for the Warriors at a really bad time, writes Kendra Andrews of ESPN. Golden State fell to the Lakers Saturday night, extending its losing streak to four games for the first time this season. The team has fallen into third place in the Western Conference after going 2-8 in its last 10 games, and Stephen Curry understands that something needs to change.

“We cannot give in to this losing mentality,” he said. “We’re not that team, and I’m not going to let us be that team. … We cannot give in to this losing spirit of just finding different ways to lose basketball games. We have 18 games left, we have to figure out how to turn things around pretty quick.”

The Warriors are dealing with a variety of issue, with the most notable being the absence of Draymond Green, who hasn’t played since January 9 but hopes to be back in “a couple weeks.” However, the problems go beyond Green, Andrews adds, as Golden State has been struggling with missed free throws, a drop in bench production and executing late in games, which coach Steve Kerr blamed for Saturday’s loss.

“I thought we had several chances to really break this game open,” Kerr said. “This has kind of been a pattern during this bad spell for us. We are not stepping on teams when they are down. We are making mistakes and allowing teams to hang around. And when you do that in this league, you’re dead.”

There’s more on the Warriors:

Another concern is a shooting slump by Klay Thompson, who is going through his worst stretch since returning from a long injury-related layoff, per Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Thompson was just 3-of-13 Saturday night, including an important miss on a wide open three in the final two minutes. “Klay’s pressing,” Kerr said. “He got into a pretty good groove over the month or so before the All-Star break, and I feel like the sickness, the illness that kept him out of a couple of games probably affected his conditioning and his timing. So, he struggled the last two games. He’ll get it back.”
The Warriors are getting quality minutes from their young players, but many of the veterans they signed during the offseason aren’t producing right now, Slater adds. Andre Iguodala has only played one six-minute stretch since January 20, Nemanja Bjelica is losing his spot in the rotation and Otto Porter Jr. hasn’t been the same since January ended.
Kerr expressed frustration over the league’s decision to schedule a make-up game Monday at Denver and said he won’t have Curry, Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and possibly a few other players make the trip, according to Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area. “We are not sending a lot of our players to Denver,” Kerr said. “The decision was pretty easy. Throwing that game (originally scheduled for December 30) into the schedule the way the league did after that game was postponed and then going back to Denver — three games in four nights, with two of those games being back and forth, we’re not gonna put our high-minutes guys at risk.”

Stephen Curry Named MVP Of All-Star Game

February 21st, 2022 at 6:43am CST by Luke Adams

Warriors guard Stephen Curry was named the MVP of the 2022 NBA All-Star Game in Cleveland on Sunday night, following a record-setting performance in which he put up 50 points and made 16 three-pointers for Team LeBron.

Curry’s 16 three-pointers obliterated the previous All-Star record of nine and are more than any player has made in a regular season game in NBA history (Curry’s teammate Klay Thompson holds that record, with 14).

While Curry’s outside shooting stole the show for much of the night, it was his teammate – and fellow Akron, Ohio native – LeBron James who hit the game-winning shot to secure a 163-160 win for Team LeBron. Curry said after the game that it was an ideal way for an All-Star Game in Cleveland to play out.

“It was kind of a perfect ending,” Curry said, per ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. “Obviously, I got the MVP; I played well the whole night. (LeBron) hit the game winner. All the history of our series and the Akron ties, and all that kind of going into how the night went, so it was pretty — can’t really draw it up any other way. It’s right on the nose of how it should go.”

It’s the first All-Star MVP award for Curry and the fifth time in NBA history that a Warriors player has won it, with Curry joining Kevin Durant (2019), Rick Barry (1967), Wilt Chamberlain (1960), and Paul Arizin (1952).

James (24 points, eight assists, six rebounds) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (30 points, 12 rebounds) were among the other Team LeBron standouts, while Joel Embiid led the way for Team Durant with 36 points and 10 boards.

And-Ones: MVP Race, I. Thomas, Draft, I. Clark

February 17th, 2022 at 9:46am CST by Luke Adams

The top two finishers in last season’s MVP voting appear to be the top two candidates for this year’s award too, writes Tim Bontemps of ESPN. Bontemps recently conducted a straw poll of 100 media members and found that Sixers center Joel Embiid narrowly – and unofficially – leads Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic in the MVP race.

As Bontemps details, Embiid received 45 first-place votes from the poll respondents, while Jokic got 43. Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (nine), Suns guard Chris Paul (two), and Warriors guard Stephen Curry (one) were the other players who got first-place votes. Interestingly, Embiid was the only player to show up on all 100 five-player ballots, while Jokic was left off five.

Curry received 94 first-place votes when Bontemps conducted a similar straw poll in December, but the veteran sharpshooter has slowed down since his hot start, while players like Embiid, Jokic, and Antetokounmpo have made stronger MVP pushes.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

Free agent guard Isaiah Thomas is expected to rejoin the Grand Rapids Gold – the Nuggets‘ G League affiliate – after the All-Star break, league sources tell Marc Stein (Twitter link). Thomas had a very brief stint in Grand Rapids in December, scoring 42 points in his only NBAGL game before getting called up to the NBA. Thomas signed 10-day contracts with the Lakers and Mavericks before returning to the open market.
Sam Vecenie of The Athletic has published a new 2022 mock draft, while Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report has updated his top-50 big board. Both draft experts currently have Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren at No. 1 and Jabari Smith of Auburn at No. 2, with Purdue’s Jaden Ivey moving up to No. 3 ahead of Duke’s Paolo Banchero.
Veteran guard Ian Clark, who has 330 regular season appearances on his NBA résumé and won a title with Golden State in 2017, has signed with the Sydney Kings, the Australian team recently announced in a press release. Clark played in 60 games for New Orleans in 2018/19, but has been out of the NBA since then.

LeBron Chooses Giannis, Curry In All-Star Draft; Durant Picks Embiid, Morant

February 10th, 2022 at 7:42pm CST by Dana Gauruder

After James Harden was traded away from the Nets on Thursday, former teammate Kevin Durant opted not to pick him in the All-Star draft conducted on Thursday night. Harden was the last player chosen by LeBron James for Team LeBron, as the league announced (via Twitter).

LeBron’s starters, besides himself, are Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Jokic.

Durant, who won’t play in the All-Star Game at Cleveland due to his knee injury, chose Joel Embiid, Ja Morant, Jayson Tatum, Trae Young and Andrew Wiggins as Team Durant’s starters.

James selected Luka Doncic as his top reserve. His guard-heavy team also features Darius Garland, Chris Paul, Jimmy Butler, Donovan Mitchell, Fred VanVleet and Harden.

Team Durant’s bench includes Devin Booker, Karl-Anthony Towns, Zach LaVine, Dejounte Murray, Khris Middleton, LaMelo Ball and Rudy Gobert.

Thus, numerous teammates will be on opposing clubs for the All-Star game, including the Jazz’s Gobert and Mitchell and the Suns’ Paul and Booker.

The game will be played February 20 in Cleveland.