Steve Kerr return still unclear

The Warriors for the second year in a row were voted most fun team to watch and Curry as the best pure shooter. Though Paul is getting older, he’s still an excellent player, and Griffin is fully entering his prime as one of the more unique and devastating offensive players in the league. The biggest thing the Celtics have going for them though is their head coach Brad Stevens.

The rivalry was already budding before this season.

As proof, he pointed out the Warriors did not have to play the Clippers or the Spurs in the playoffs.

“You lose by 35, it ain’t just OK, though”, Green said. They played without Curry, Finals MVP Andre Iguodala, and Center Andrew Bogut. “If we got lucky, look at our record against them a year ago”.

‎”He still doesn’t know”, Luke Walton said after practice Monday in San Diego.

“I love it”, he said. “OK, so at least six of them don’t know what they’re doing”, Walton said, smiling. Based on this poll the GM’s think that the Celtics will finish eighth in the Eastern Conference at best and I would personally be surprised by that. If the Warriors are going to repeat as National Basketball Association champions, at a few point they’ll need to find a way to consistently get more production from Barnes. “They don’t fear us at all, as they shouldn’t”. You can’t just say ‘We’re gonna play small at times.’ Not everybody has Golden State’s roster. The Warriors are essentially betting that they can switch on their intensity and cohesiveness at the flip of a switch when the season begins, rather than trying to build it gradually through the preseason schedule. And though they also had the alibi of Blake Griffin being sidelined with an ankle injury for part of that series, they made Vinny Del Negro the scapegoat and replaced him with Doc Rivers, luring him from Boston by promising him complete control of the franchise. “(Kerr) always was telling us that second, third year is when you really take off. So if we did what we did last year, and we’re still learning about the system and how we’re going to go out and play it, I like our chances going into this year, too”. He’ll be guarding everybody’s best perimeter guy -though not well, one suspects- and get left wide open all night. “And I can play multiple positions, do multiple things on the court”. Unsurprisingly, the Warriors looked a bit disjointed on offense (41% shooting, 4-17 from three, 23 turnovers) and totally porous on defense (54.9% shooting, 130 points allowed). “That’s the only negative of the game”.

Regardless of the time of year, every one of those games will be the talk of the sports community.

Thompson said the banter was healthy among teams competing against each other: “It’s a healthy competitiveness and a healthy dislike for both teams”. Austin Rivers scored 16 points, and Lance Stephenson scored four points in 18 minutes in his first preseason start.