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No NBA team solely can rely on one player to carry them every game, not even the Steph Curry-led Warriors.
While Curry has been the driving force behind Golden State’s four NBA championships and decade-plus of dominance, he hasn’t done it alone. By his side have been longtime teammates Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and at one point, future Hall of Famer Kevin Durant. He has always had reinforcements.
However, it hasn’t always felt that way at times this season.
Outside of Curry, Warriors center Dario Šarić is the only other player to score 20 points in a game this season. In speaking to reporters after Golden State’s 116-110 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday at Chase Center, coach Steve Kerr stressed the importance of a consistent second scoring threat behind Curry.
“No question, we need some scoring and some playmaking from elsewhere,” Kerr said. “We’ve got to keep plugging away. We’ll go from there and see where that takes us.”
Curry is used to being the opposing team’s focus defensively and along with Thompson, has seen just about every look opponents have thrown at him. However, with Thompson and forward Andrew Wiggins struggling to begin the season, Curry knows the Warriors need to adjust offensively.
“There’s always been an approach of guarding us,” Curry said postgame. “For years, you know where attention is going to be, either trying to blitz me in a pick-and-roll or stay body-tight on Klay when he doesn’t have it coming off pindowns or whatever the case is. So we have to make adjustments. Can’t just keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.
“But it’s not panic or anything. It’s just a matter of getting a little smarter and a little more organized on how we’re creating good shots and trusting that we have the ability to do that with our rotations and the combinations that we put out there. It does feel like everything is tough to come by in terms of creating good looks but that’s not something that we feel like is unfixable.”
Green is the facilitator of the Warriors’ offense and while he isn’t relied upon to consistently be a top scorer, the veteran forward delivered a passionate plea and challenge to himself and his teammates.
“We got to step up,” Green added. “When you’re playing well, players get the credit and you get paid, right? It’s the league we’re in. You play well, you get credit, you get paid, you get All-Star appearances, you get All-Defensive teams, All-NBA teams. This thing. That thing. When you play bad players got to f—ing take the blame as well. We can come up here and point a bunch of fingers.
“We can say ‘Oh man, coach could have did this better or referees could have been better.’ You can come up and point a lot of fingers. At the end of the day, you play basketball, it’s your job to figure it out and be better. And so that falls on all of us and you gotta take on that challenge of being better and giving to the team what you need to give to the team one through 20 or however many players we got these days.”
The Warriors (6-5) got off to a hot start, but have cooled off as of late. Golden State has dropped three straight games and is searching for answers offensively.
Their next test will be a matchup against the very same Timberwolves team on Tuesday at Chase Center, followed by back-to-back matchups with the up-and-coming Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday and Saturday.