The Golden State Warriors are ready to begin their fourth defense of the Western Conference championship title when on Tuesday they play the first game against the Portland Trail Blazers and with the great challenge of playing without their leading scorer, forward Kevin Durant.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr confirmed tonight that Durant will not be available for the first game and it is not certain that on Thursday he will be able to do so in the second of the best-of-seven series.
“We cannot force the return of a player like Durant, the injury has been more important than previously thought and he still has pain in his right calf that he injured last week against the Houston Rockets,” Kerr reported. “Durant has not been able to train, he feels discomfort and we will have to evaluate him again on Thursday.”
Kerr said the team is aware of what Durant’s loss entails, as it did against the Rockets, and therefore must work more as a team than ever.
“The reality is that he will not be there like the pivot DeMarcus Cousins, although we are optimistic that as the competition progresses we will have them available, but that will be something we cannot speculate about but have all the medical elements at our fingertips and to decide”.
In addition, Kerr recalled that these are athletes not superheroes or something similar, they need time to get in shape and adapt to the rhythm of the competition.
“We must not waste time on speculation or easy headlines, we must be professional, serious and responsible for the great new sporting challenge we face,” said Kerr. “We have achieved the goal of being in the finals and fighting to revalidate the title of champions is the only thing that should focus all our attention.”
Kerr has no doubt that the team will fight to the maximum to take advantage of the field advantage in the first two games to be played at Oracle Arena in Oakland, although he acknowledged that the mission will not be easy at all against a rival of the characteristics of the Trail Blazers.
“He is a rival who never gives you the option to rest, to lose concentration, because you pay dearly for it,” said Kerr. “They have not reached the final by chance but by having competed to the maximum.”
The four regular season games between the two teams ended the tie at 2-2, which shows the equality that existed when each of them won on the road.
But now the Warriors are a more consistent team with a better level of play than in the regular season, and the absence of Durant will not be an impediment to show it on the field.
The betting world in Las Vegas sees the Warriors as the big favorites against Portland, and they are even the top contenders to revalidate the NBA title, regardless of the rival in the Eastern Conference, which will come out of the duel between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Toronto Raptors.
“None of that helps us,” said point guard Stephen Curry, the great hero of the sixth game of the semifinals against the Rockets, in which he scored 33 points in the second half, and his team won on the road 113-118. “We have to win the games on the field and the reality is that we will be the first two without Durant and that is difficult.”
Curry said that every time you don’t have one of your key teammates in a playoff game, it’s something that makes itself felt in one way or another.
“Nobody likes to live that experience and we already felt those effects in the previous two games against the Rockets, even though in the end we won, but we could also have lost perfectly,” Curry said. “Now the only thing that counts is that Durant has a good rehabilitation and we know of all the effort he makes to complete it in a positive way.”
Curry recalled that replacing a player who scored an average of 30 or more points in each game is not something easy to assimilate overnight, and although there is a great bench within the team, in the end they also need their time to enter. in action.
“The best we can do is perform at our best on the field so that when Durant returns the team is in the best possible position to continue in the fight to reach the NBA Finals,” Curry stressed. “Hence the importance of having a good start in the series with the field advantage.”
As for being the protagonist with his younger brother Seth, who plays as a reserve point guard with the Trail Blazers, the first to take place in a finals between two brothers in NBA history, Curry limited himself to saying that he was not going at all. to be a distraction.
“It is something that does not matter to the team and should remain in the background and as something anecdotal,” said Curry. “The only thing that counts is doing our best work as a team and winning.”