Kiwi Steve in the NBA #14: The Way of the Warrior
This series began the way the last one ended for Steven Adams: in covid protocols. Steve-o had been unable to be with the Memphis Grizzlies lads as they clinched a first round series win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. He was stuck at home in his pyjamas with a warm blanket wrapped around him and a streaming mug of soup in his hands, which was where he remained for the first couple games of the Conference Semi Finals against the Golden State Warriors.
Game one saw the Warriors hanging on for a 117-116 win as Ja Morant missed a lay-up at the buzzer (to compensate for Klay Thompson missing a pair of free throws just prior). A crazy game in which Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr were able to rediscover more of what made them each so great during the regular season after some tough match-ups across the board against Minnesota though it wasn’t quite enough in the end.
Game two – these were both at home in Memphis btw – seemed to be heading in the same direction as Steph Curry hit a couple of triples with about five mins remaining but then Ja Morant scored 15 straight points for the Grizz across the last 4:16 of the game to lead his team to the win. 47 points for Ja. He wen bonkers.
Thus the series was tied at 1-1 with a couple days off for travel as things moved to San Francisco. A couple of days that were greatly appreciated by the Grizzlies as it not only allowed Steven Adams to finish his isolation but it even allowed him a day’s practice to start ramping himself back up physically too ahead of game three.
Taylor Jenkins: “He’ll be active and I’ll figure out the rotations in the next 24 hours, but he’s trending in a good direction and he’s getting his wind back – you know, doing Steven Adams things out there. So we’ve got a lot of confidence that when we put him in the line-up he’s going to go out there and be successful.”
Tyus Jones: “Steve-O is a leader on this team and he brings a lot of energy. We’ve missed him while he was out so we’re excited to get him back and he’s ready to go.”
Zaire Williams: “It’s been great because we definitely need Steve-O. He’s just a big body, a bruiser with that physicality. He’s one of the leaders on our team so we appreciate having him back.”
The bloke was indeed back... but covid is a tricky bastard and he spent the game still out of the regular rotation as Xavier Tillman started yet again. Adams only played the last half of the fourth quarter in what was effectively garbage time as the Dubs won by 30 points. 3 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists in that short stint. Decent yarns operating with the bench unit but the Grizzlies’ playoff run was looking sketchy down 2-1 and to make matters worse Ja Morant would be ruled out of the remainder of the series thanks to a bone bruise. Not looking flash.
Hence we finally got what we (kiwi basketball fans, Grizzlies fans, curious neutral observers alike) had been calling for. Steven Adams started game four. Not only did he start but he dominated. Despite any lingering worries, when Adams was on the court the Grizzlies operated like the team that had continued to win whenever Ja Morant was injured during the regular season. He’d play 27 minutes with 10 points, 15 rebounds, and 3 assists. He was a team-best +13 when out on the court. Only drama there was that they didn’t play him in the clutch time line-up and while he was off the Dubs rallied back from what was a 12-point Memphis lead with 10:35 remaining to win and make it 3-1.
Meaning game five was season on the line back in Memphis... and they delivered their best performance of the series. Adams was superb with 7p/13r/3a while Jaren Jackson, Dillon Brooks, and Desmond Bane all scored exactly 21 points as they blew the buggers out of the water completely for a 134-95 win to take things back to California for game six... where a valiant effort ultimately came up short against another Game Six Klay Thompson masterclass (shades of 2016 for Steve-o).
Thompson scored 30 with eight triples. Steph Curry scored 29. Most shocking of all was that Kevon Looney, the centre elevated into the starting team presumably to deal with the Steven Adams factor, went and had himself a legendary night with 22 rebounds, 11 of them at the offensive end. Adams still led the Grizz in boards but it wasn’t enough. Adams with 4p/10r/3a. Dubs won it 110-96 and advanced to face the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals while a wonderful Memphis Grizzlies season ended then and there.
The Funaki Impact
That was the breeze-through of the series that was. A 4-2 triumph for the Golden State Warriors who in the end took the biscuits thanks in large part, you’d have to say, to their heavy playoff experience. We’re talking about some of the greatest players to ever do this thing and several times they were able to make adjustments that the Grizzlies were perhaps too slow to respond to. Easy to forget it’s not just about the players. Grizz coach Taylor Jenkins is also young in this job and hadn’t been in this pressure cauldron before himself. He’ll stay learning same as the rest of them.
Jenkins was asked a very expected question after his team was eliminated, that being whether or not he’s pondered how things might have been different had Ja Morant not been injured. Fair enough, it’s a valid question. It’s also a valid question to wonder how things might have been different had Adams not gotten covid.
The fact that he was still on the bench in game three after his return suggests that he may not have immediately come back into the opening five for the first Warriors game... although perhaps that’s misleading. There were times in game four when Adams, in his proper comeback, looked pretty bloody gassed. Breathing in the big ones. And in game five he was seen casually puffing on the ol’ oxygen mask to keep his levels up.
In that context it starts to look more like Adams simply wasn’t physically ready for game three despite having recovered from his illness. Those suckers do knock you around a bit and it can take time to get your lungs back to full capacity afterwards.
But that only brings us back to the initial point... what if Steven Adams had never gotten sick? Because the Grizzlies may have gotten by without him in the first round but this series was screaming out for some Big Kiwi action as the Grizz were consistently out-rebounded by a smaller team. Points in the paint. Second chance points. The stuff that this Memphis team was built upon during the regulars and here they were getting beaten at their own game.
| G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | G5 | G6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Rebs | GSW +6 | GSW +3 | GSW +8 | GSW +6 | MEM +18 | GSW +26 |
| Off Reb | Even | GSW +1 | MEM +3 | Even | MEM +14 | GSW +15 |
| Pts in Paint | GSW +12 | GSW +18 | GSW +18 | MEM +14 | MEM +14 | GSW +2 |
| 2nd Chance Pts | GSW +4 | GSW +10 | GSW +3 | MEM +2 | MEM +19 | GSW +9 |
Looking at that chart, Adams didn’t exactly fix the rebounding yarns (tbf he was only playing around half the minutes). However the points in the paint stat swung massively back in Memphis’ favour on balance once he stepped back into the starting line-up. Then, not coincidentally, they swung back the other way in the decisive game six as Kevon Looney’s reverse consequences were felt.
Adams spent roughly 42% of his defensive time guarding Draymond Green and about 29% on Looney in game six (related point: when Looney defended Adams at the other end it meant Green could be on JJJ... who shot 5/19 for 12 points in G6). Looney certainly did some rebounding damage while Adams was out there, taking advantage of Adams’ high-post touches to drop off and hunt the boards with Adams out of range. Adams was also a little less keen on hunting the second chancers in that game which could have been a product of some of the shots his team was attempting but could also have been deliberate in order to stay vigilant against the Golden State fast break.
Looney also got to go at it with smaller guys like Brandon Clarke and Kyle Anderson trying to stop him which needless to say was very much in Kevon’s favour. 14 of his boards were with Adams on the court, 8 were without him. Gotta cop it on the chin and say that the Warriors made a great decision there. Chucked on a rival big man to lessen the impact that Steven Adams had caused on the series since coming back and coupled with some fantastic shooting from the Splash Bros and a vibrant home crowd (as well as an existing 3-2 lead) that was what it took to take them into the next round.
Having said that... it’d be remiss not to mention the other tactic they used on ol’ Funaki. Some ruthless physical battles going on there which did occasionally stray into dubious territory. When Adams checked back into the game in the second quarter the Grizz were down by seven with 7:28 left in the half. Cue a cheeky 14-3 run over the next four mins before Adams had to go into the locker room having rolled his ankle competing for a rebound with Draymond Green (in this case nothing dubious, he just landed awkwardly).
There wasn’t too much doubt he’d return in a game so important... but he surely must have been playing through some serious pain in the second half. Something else to keep in mind. Here was another instance from earlier in the series...
Old mate Draymond again. Hilariously that was actually called as a foul on Adams. At least Tips escaped this meeting without any testicular bruising like what happened the last time he matched up with Draymond Green in the playoffs. And to be fair they did share a nice moment after the series ended. Leave it all out on the court, as they say. Two fierce competitors. Plenty of mutual respect.
But even if things got away from the Grizzlies in the end, this was a resurgent series for Steven Adams. After being benched for match-up reasons in round one there were no doubt folks out there wondering if his style of player is even viable at all in the playoffs in this day and age. Well, he swatted that one out of the air in a hurry. Adams’ return gave life to Memphis at a time when Morant’s injury threatened to crush it. Again, you can only wonder what might have gone down if he hadn’t been sick for the first half of the games.
What an impact. It wasn’t just the rebounding. As much as anything it was the way in which he facilitated their offence. Those elbow touches give his team a reliable source of efficient shots. It’s an action they’re super familiar with and are able to create motion from within. Hand-offs, cutters to the rim, flips to open three point shooters.
That was huge for the Grizzlies, especially without Ja Morant – coz remember that Adams and Morant did not share the court against Golden State. Six games of basketball and it never happened, not for a single second. The only game in which they both played was game three and Morant went off injured 42 game-clock seconds before Adams checked in for the first and only time. You surely don’t need a reminder that Ja Morant benefits from the Steven Adams package of crushing screens more than anyone.
As for the supposed defensive dramas and how Steph and Klay were going to torch him in the pick and roll and off the dribble and how there was just no way that Adams could hang with those guys... say, would you look at this? Just look at it...
This is the part of the article when the list comes out so brace yourself for some emphatic stattery...
Steven Adams was a +32 in his 83 total minutes against Golden State, averaging out at +8.0 per game which was the best average plus/minus of any Grizzlies player (don’t forget that they lost two of his three starts)
Steven Adams led the Grizzlies with 40 total rebounds despite only being on the floor for 28.8% of the action
Steven Adams’ offensive rating of 120.2 (per NBA.com) was far and away the best for the Grizzlies, with Ja Morant in second at 114.9
Steven Adams also had one of the best defensive ratings on the team at 101.1 – working out to a net rating of +19.1 which was not only the best for Memphis by a country mile but it was the third best across all second round series amongst players who got as many or more minutes as Steve-o did (Max Strus and Derrick White the two who topped him)
Steven Adams had 16 screen assists for 40 points, no other Grizz player had more than four in the entire series. That number for Adams was only one shy of series leader Draymond Green... who played more than twice as many minutes
When guarded by Steven Adams, Warriors players shot 19/53 for 35.8% which was the best number on the entire roster, slightly edging renowned lock-down defender Dillon Brooks – that includes 4/20 from beyond the three point line
Fashion Corner
The Peabody Ducks
Ducks, you say? What strange shenanigans are these?
Okay so here’s the story of the Peabody Ducks. That whole exchange was in reference to an interview that Tips did with Drew Hill of the Daily Memphian right at the start of the season. It was sort of like an introduction to the city kind of thing and part of that interview went like this...
DH: Are you familiar with the Peabody ducks?
Adams: No, is that an ice hockey team or something?
DH: No, it’s not an ice hockey team. That’s the Mighty Ducks. These are ducks that walk down the red carpet to a fountain in the Peabody Hotel.
Adams: Ohhhhh! I’ve heard about this!
DH: Would you ever check them out?
Adams: Yeah, when I first stayed here I stayed at the Central Station Hotel. They told me to check out the ducks. Yeah, that’s f------ crazy, that’s ducking crazy, mate.
Basically... Mr Hill sums it all up there. There are these trained ducks at the Peabody Hotel. A couple times a day they’re led into the main foyer along a red carpet and into the water featured in the middle of the floor. They’ve been doing this for near on ninety years with several Duckmasters having held the position in the past – the Duckmaster of course being the trainer who leads them along. It’s become a bit of an undercover tourist attraction in that time. There’s a video and some more facts/history over here.
Looking at some of the footage, Adams is definitely is right to wonder if it’s mostly a kids thing. It would look kinda weird this 6’11 fella with long hair and a big beard towering over a bunch of youngsters to watch ducks go walking and then take a swim. Though he can certainly afford a decent room at the Peabody if he wanted… so, you know, he could just conveniently happen to be there at 11am one morning as the ducks go walking. Not too hard to arrange that.
Alternatively: Honorary Duckmaster Status. That’s a thing they do. Assist the Duckmaster on his duties for a time. Anyone can simply buy the honorary Duckmaster experience if they want... but it’d be way more fun to see him added to a list of past celebrity Duckmasters that includes: “Oprah Winfrey, Patrick Swayze, Florence Henderson, Emeril Lagasse, Peter Frampton, Joan Collins, George Hamilton, Molly Ringwald, Gene Simmons, Larry King, Kevin Bacon, and many (many!) more”.
Genuinely not sure which of those famous folk Steve-o would be most excited about replicating. Probably Oprah... although he is a noted foodie so Emeril Lagasse might be more on the nose. Regardless, the invitation is already out there...
Actually on second thought... not sure they’d let him into the hotel wearing jandals. Never mind.
“Bloody Wanker, Watch Yourself”
SLAM DUNKS
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