Something felt eerily similar about the Warriors’ Game 5 loss in Houston.
“They weren’t playing ‘Whoop That Trick,’” Draymond Green smirked, “but they may as well have been.”
The Warriors fell behind by as many as 31 points in the 131-116 loss, but there’s a reason why they’re not panicking as the series shifts back to San Francisco.
They’ve been here before.
“Yeah, similar vibe,” coach Steve Kerr said of Wednesday’s loss, drawing on a comparison to another recent potential closeout Game 5 his squad lost badly on the road.
It was just on the group’s most recent of six trips to the NBA Finals under Kerr, in 2022, that they had a chance to put away the Memphis Grizzlies and were blown out even worse than it got in Houston — 134-95.
That game ended with the Grizzlies celebrating to their team anthem — Whoop That Trick. The teams took the court two nights later in San Francisco, and the rest is history.
“At this point in our careers, we’ve seen it all. Had all the experiences, so we’ve got something to draw on,” Green said. “(Houston) played a good game. … We turn the page quick.”
In a similar vein to the 2022 Grizzlies, who also featured Dillon Brooks and Steven Adams, Kerr noted that the Rockets were a “young team on their home floor trying to stay alive.”
But the Warriors have experience in their corner.
The trio of Green, Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler III has played a combined 437 postseason games. Under Kerr, Golden State has gone 27-12 in situations where either team could go home.
“Our guys have been here many times,” Kerr said.
“While it’s all well and great to talk about, you have to go do something about it on the court,” Curry added. “Our group is trying to do this for the first time together and I love that challenge because we have an opportunity to write our own story in how we bounce back. We’ve had a pretty resilient group over the past two months, and it has to show on Friday.”
Moses Moody wasn’t even a high school prospect when the Warriors’ dynasty began, but even he has championship experience to draw on from their 2022 run when he was a rookie.
A round after Golden State advanced over Memphis, the Warriors were up 3-0 on the Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals heading into Game 4 in Dallas. They fell behind by as many as 29 points in that one only for the reserves to make it interesting at the end.
Sound familiar?
“They brought their starters back, tired ‘em out, they had to fight for the win, and we walked them off the next game,” Moody said. “So let’s finish this story the same way.”
The same thing happened in Houston, and Moody was the central catalyst. Leading the second unit after Kerr sent his starters to the bench for good with 5:50 left in the third quarter, Moody scored a team-high 25 points and helped cut the deficit to as close as 13 points.
“The goal was to make them put their starters in and not get a break, so we accomplished that,” Moody said. “We didn’t get the win, but we got something out of it.”
Curry continues to nurse a sore right thumb and Butler was clearly still impacted by the fall that kept him out of Game 2. But the large deficit allowed them to rest while the fight put up by the Warriors’ bench forced every Rockets starter to log double-digit minutes in the second half.
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“They set a tone that we’re going to need for Game 6,” Kerr said. “Even though we lost the game I thought it was crucial that we fought the way we did in the fourth quarter. … There were some positives in what was otherwise a decisive loss.”
While Curry is correct that the current group has yet to accomplish anything, Kerr noted that Butler has no shortage of his own playoff pedigree to draw on.
When the Miami Heat needed to win Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, after blowing a 3-0 series lead against the Boston Celtics, Butler scored 28 points in an easy 103-84 win.
“We’re fine,” Butler said. “Our confidence isn’t going to waver. Start out better and play a better overall game, because we know how good of a team we are as a unit, we know how good our players are as individuals. As starters we just have to start us off better, which we know that we’ll do.
“We’ll be fine.”