Warriors Learn Nothing Comes Easy After ‘Slap in the Face’ to Start NBA Season

OAKLAND, Calif. — There will come a time during the 2016-17 NBA season when the Golden State Warriors are racking up wins with ease and regularity, where the offense is smooth and the defense smothering. At their best, they’ll change the way we think a basketball game plan can be conducted.

But there will be other nights, perhaps more than people expect, when it seems like all the gears, normally so in sync, are slipping just enough to throw the machine off stride.

The golden egg the Warriors laid on their home court to the rival San Antonio Spurs Tuesday night proved that. Golden State lost by the very real score of 129-100. The Warriors were out-rebounded by 19, committed more turnovers than the Spurs and took fewer free throws. They lost second-chance points by a disturbing 26-4 margin and only made 21 percent of their three-pointers.

This was no clear improvement over last season’s squad. This was, as Stephen Curry called it, a “nice little slap in the face.”

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After earning their place as the spring’s big losers, choking away a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Warriors were the summer’s biggest winners in plucking Kevin Durant away from Oklahoma City. His presence here, with a lethal outside shot and ability to space the floor and incomprehensible 7’5” wingspan, was supposed to supercharge an already radioactive core of shooters—Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green—to unsafe levels.

There were a couple of instances where you could see what the future might hold: Curry missing a three-pointer, Andre Iguodala corralling an offensive rebound (one of only eight on the night for Golden State) and kicking out to a Durant for an open shot behind the arc.

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This is the type of play that will not only keep the Warriors in close games but help build those insurmountable leads they so often distributed during last season.

As time goes on, the realization that Kevin Durant (who is one of the best basketball players on the planet) is not Harrison Barnes (who has yet to prove himself as valuable), and that a whole new world of options has been afforded to them, will dawn on the Warriors as a collective whole. That will be a very good and welcome development for the team and its fans.

But that today is not here yet, and there is more than enough homework for the coaching staff over the next few games. Head coach Steve Kerr must figure how to keep his team’s energy and focus up for 48 minutes. New assistant coach Mike Brown is the primary …

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