Back to the future: Warriors vs. Heat
How did Golden State do with their keys to victory against Miami?
The Golden State Warriors did some good things during their Thursday night game against the Miami Heat. They also did some really bad things, and unfortunately, the latter outnumbered the former, leading to a loss.
Let’s see how they did with their pregame keys to victory from the preview.
Bring the fight
The key: Have more energy after two rest days than the Heat, who are playing a back-to-back with traveling in between.
The outcome: After the game, Steve Kerr specifically called the Warriors out for this. The Warriors had two days off and the Heat had just played a very close game the night before ... in Indiana.
Yet Miami came out of the gate with energy and pizzaz, and the Warriors looked like they’d just eaten a few desserts at The Cheesecake Factory and needed a few hours to nap it off.
Steve Kerr: "There should be a sense of urgency because it's the stretch run. But, it's just cheap talk if you don't play like it."
— Connor Letourneau (@Con_Chron) April 2, 2021
Grading the key: 1.5 out of 10.
Limit the wings
The key: Hold Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro from dynamic offensive games.
The outcome: Butler and Herro picked the Warriors apart, finding their spots all night, and getting easy looks. Butler led the Heat in both offensive categories, with 22 points and 8 assists, and shot 7-for-13, while earning 9 free throws (he also had 6 rebounds and 4 steals).
Herro hit a clean 20, while shooting 8-for-13.
The Warriors needed to put some water on the hot hands of Miami’s two best wings, but instead they put fuel on them.
Grading the key: 2.5 out of 10.
Keep Bam in check
They key: Contain Bam Adebayo.
The outcome: James Wiseman had his hands full with Miami’s young All-Star center, and while it was surely a good developmental lesson for the Warriors rookie, it wasn’t a very successful night.
Adebayo had 19 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists on the night, and while he shot just 5-for-13, he got to the free throw line 9 times, making all 9. But his defense was his biggest contribution, as he held Wiseman to just 4 points, and frequently discouraged Warriors from attacking the rim.
Grading the key: 2 out of 10.
Go off, Steph
The key: Steph Curry find a lot of threes.
The outcome: Last time. these two teams met, Curry somehow was able to find 20 threes to shoot. The problem was that he only made a quarter of them.
He wasn’t able to find quite as many looks on Thursday, but he made them at a much nicer rate, converting on 5-of-11 shots from distance en route to a highly efficient 36 points.
The Warriors did a lot of things wrong on Thursday, but Kerr said after the game that there wasn’t anything he didn’t like about Curry’s performance, which was sensational.
Grading the key: 8 out of 10.
Safe to say that performance won’t suffice against most teams.