Golden State Warriors: The special Steph-Draymond partnership

With Kevin Durant out and Klay Thompson hobbled, the Golden State Warriors will lean heavily on their two cornerstones: Stephen Curry and Draymond Green

Even the thought of entering an NBA Finals game without two of your four best players would spook just about any other team in the NBA, or in the history of the league. But, as we know by now, the Golden State Warriors aren’t just any “other” team.

Even with the uncertain statuses of two of their stars, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, the Warriors are still favored to win a game they desperately need tonight back in Oakland at Oracle Arena.

On top of those injury woes, we also learned that Kevon Looney, one of their main contributors in these playoffs, would be sidelined for the rest of the playoffs. This is a big deal. Looney may not garner the same fanfare as Thompson and Durant but he has closed a lot of games for this team throughout the playoffs, and has acquitted himself quite well in some difficult matchups.

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Going into Game 3, if we were to draft every player, excluding Thompson, playground-style, until we ended up with enough to play 5-on-5, it’s likely that only three Warriors would make the cut. The debate would be over whether a hobbled Andre Iguodala and a still-recovering Boogie Cousins would earn a spot over the likes of Fred VanVleet (who has been excellent since the birth of his child), Serge Ibaka, or Danny Green.

Ever since they won their first title in 2015, the Warriors’ ethos has been “Strength in Numbers.” Well, slowly but surely, they’re losing this war of attrition, and seemingly running out of able bodies to throw out there, and yet, they’ve given no indication that they’re nervous about this pivotal game.

Remarkably, they really have no reason to be. Because when the lineups are announced tonight, Steve Kerr, the fans and everyone in the organization knows that Steph Curry and Draymond Green will still be occupying their normal starting spots. In so many ways, these two are the bedrocks of this dynasty, and are representative of everything they’ve built over the last half-decade.

During the slog of the regular season, many were questioning whether we had already seen the best of Green. This concern wasn’t necessarily misplaced, as much as it was misguided. This is, after all, the player who has recently popularized the term “16-Game Player,” and has pleaded with his general manager to find more of them.

He may not admit it, but Durant’s injury in Game 5 of the Conference Semifinals against Houston seemed to energize Green. For a team that has had it relatively easy over the last two years, and who’s main opponent has been complacency, any edge is important, especially for their emotional leader.

Over the last three weeks, the magic and joy they experienced during their first title run returned, in the form of pristine ball movement and mad dashes into the paint by Green, which often ended in open 3-point looks or alley-oops.

When Green is frolicking into the paint, often in a 4-on-3 situation, it’s likely because of Curry. Curry is the best shooter this league has ever seen, a magnetic force capable of tilting the entire defense towards him and opening up different spaces on the floor for his teammates. But teams can throw traps, doubles and hard-hedges at him, often thinking that any shot from a teammate, even an open one, is better than even a contested Curry 3.

This is the brilliance of this unique partnership. Everything a defense does to slow down Curry, and his transcendent shooting, opens up Green’s strengths: the anticipation, the passing, the rampaging to the rim. In the playoffs alone, Green and Curry are second only to Nikola Jokic and Paul Millsap in net rating among two-man combos who have played at least 400 minutes together. Green and Curry have also played roughly 220 more minutes than the Jokic-Millsap combo.

If you look back at the rosters of past NBA champions, they are littered with great duos. Kobe and Shaq. LeBron and Wade. Jordan and Pippen. It goes on and on and on.

When we talk about these current Warriors, we often talk about their Big 4. It’s one of the greatest groups ever assembled, and with Steph and Klay’s shooting and Durant’s scoring ability, Green’s contributions can often get lost in the shuffle.

But if the Warriors attitude going into Game 3 is any indication, they seem just fine with the only healthy duo they have left: Steph and Draymond. It may have been the most potent all along.