SAN FRANCISCO — Sunday night in the Chase Center will be a test in how many people held onto their commemorative Klay Thompson captain’s hats or sold — at wild profit margins on Ebay — them.
The Warriors were supposed to get only two home games against the Dallas Mavericks, Thompson’s new team after 13 years in Golden State. But because each lost in the quarterfinals of the NBA Cup, the Warriors are hosting the Mavericks yet again.
The first time Dallas came to town, the Warriors showered Thompson with adoration. Hundreds of employees greeted him at the player entrance, fans saluted him with their giveaway captain’s hats and Thomspson felt the warm welcoming.
“It was really cool to see the fans’ gratitude,” Thompson said after the Nov. 12 game. “That’s something I’ll never take for granted.”
That night was so special, it’d be impossible to replicate it. The novelty of the moment has worn off, anyway. Thompson has moved on, and so have the Warriors. Steph Curry and Draymond Green have competed against their brother, seen what it looks like with him in another uniform. There will always be mutual love, but this is a business.
So even though Thompson returning to the Chase Center for a second time (and again in February) will feel bigger than a regular season game against a typical opponent for nostalgic fans, the spotlight isn’t nearly the same.
“I think maybe the homecoming has already subsided,” Lindy Waters III said. “I think we’re just looking at it as the Dallas Mavericks, and they’re coming in here to our home court, we’ve got to protect it.”
The Warriors won the first meeting with the Mavericks, 120-117, behind a magnificent 37-point gem from Curry. Thompson dropped 22 but fizzled in the fourth quarter as his former Splash Brother elevated.
After the storybook game, Thompson has hit a snag. He missed four games with plantar fascia and has just one 20-point game in the month since his homecoming. He’s averaging 11.9 points on 37.7% shooting from 3 in his last 10 games.
Thompson is also averaging 24 minutes per game in that span, six fewer than his first 11 games as a Maverick. As he struggles and bench players like Quentin Grimes, Spencer Dinwiddie and Naji Marshall excel for Dallas, Thompson’s role could take a hit.
None of that concerns the Warriors. They have their own issues to deal with — and some newfound time to address them.
Because they failed to advance to the NBA Cup semifinals in Las Vegas, the Warriors only play one game in a seven-day span.
“It’s the silver lining,” Steve Kerr said Friday. “We’d rather be in Vegas playing tomorrow, obviously, but we’re not. So let’s take advantage of this schedule. Get some rest, get guys healthy, get some good practices in and get sharp.”
The Warriors held a light walk-through on Friday and are practicing again Saturday. Andrew Wiggins, who has missed the last two games with an ankle sprain, is expected to participate in full.
Really, as Kerr mentioned, this week is an opportunity to sharpen the edges that prevented the Warriors from competing in the Vegas portion of the NBA Cup. Too often recently, including in the Rockets quarterfinal game, the Warriors have looked out of sorts in crunch time. Houston outscored the Warriors 7-0 in the final 77 seconds to eliminate them from NBA Cup play (Bill Kennedy’s loose-ball foul call didn’t help, either).
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Late-game execution issues also reared in losses to the Nuggets, Thunder, Nets and Spurs.
“The pattern of scoreless droughts down the stretch has to be addressed, or else we’re going to be a mediocre team,” Stephen Curry told reporters in Houston.
The emphasis in practice is on getting organized and finding sets to go to when games get tight. The Warriors are still searching for the right combinations, but as of now have settled on closing games with Draymond Green at the five alongside Jonathan Kuminga.
Regardless of the lineup groupings Kerr has come up with, just about every Warriors loss has the common thread of unforced turnovers and mental mistakes — especially late. Seven losses in their past nine games hold up as evidence.
The Rockets forced back-to-back shot clock violations in addition to a turnover with Green trying to feed Kuminga cutting to the basket. Then Curry, up one point, took a 3-pointer too early, opening a window for Houston to win the game.
“We’re 14-10, we feel like we’ve given away three games,” Kerr said. “What Steph is saying is right: if we keep giving away games, we’re in the middle of the pack, that makes us mediocre. What I like is we’ve had 24 games, we’ve been blown out one time — that was in Cleveland. We’re competing every single night, we’re giving ourselves a chance to win every single night. Now it’s a matter of cleaning stuff up, handling situations better at both ends of the floor.”
It’s rare for teams to have more practices than games in a week. The Warriors ought to make the most of it before Thompson and the Mavericks put them to the test.
“This week at practice…I think it really allows us to address some of the situational things,” Kerr said. “Our late-game offense, late-quarter stuff. It’s on us as a group — coaches, players — to make these improvements and start closing these games out.”
