OAKLAND–Tuesday night at Oracle Arena was all about the celebration.
For better, and at the end, for worse.
As time expired on the Warriors’ season-opener, Kevin Durant launched a jump shot from the baseline that appeared to send the Warriors to a stunning 123-122 win over the Houston Rockets. Durant was mobbed by his teammates just two and a half hours after celebrating his team’s 2017 NBA Championship with his first career ring, and in a moment, everything appeared perfect.
But upon replay review, Durant released his shot shortly after the final horn sounded, and suddenly, the Warriors’ celebration was wiped out.
122-121. And more importantly 0-1.
Oh so close pic.twitter.com/wB9JKJUsEL
— KNBR (@KNBR) October 18, 2017
Golden State is starting anew, and if Tuesday was any reminder, it’s going to be one hell of a ride.
Last season, the Warriors lost their season opener in blowout fashion, collapsing against the San Antonio Spurs in a 129-100 defeat. This year, they were determined to start the season off on the right note. This year, they had Nick Young.
The enigmatic 13th-year NBA veteran signed with Golden State this offseason as the franchise’s latest reclamation project, and on opening night against the Rockets, Young stole the show during the first half with five three-pointers on six attempts.
After watching 12 of his teammates receive their 2017 NBA Championship rings in a pregame ceremony that featured the Warriors’ unveiling of their fifth banner, Young played as if he was determined to have his finger sized this June. The former Los Angeles Lakers’ guard hit his first four three-point attempts of the evening, and by the midway point of the second quarter, Young had already racked up 17 points. At that point in the game, the Warriors’ high-scoring All-Star trilogy of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant had combined for just 16 points.
While Young gave Golden State much of what it hoped for on the offensive end of the floor, it was his defense that became a story in the second half, as the Rockets narrowed the Warriors’ lead late in the fourth quarter. After forward Draymond Green exited the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter with a knee injury, Young and several other Golden State players attempted to stave off a late challenge. Green’s presence was surely missed, as he had already amassed nine points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists in just 28 minutes on the floor.
Young was not on the floor in the final two and a half minutes, when the Rockets closed the deficit down to 119-118 following a three-point field goal from Trevor Ariza after Curry failed to corral a loose ball under the hoop. And Young was not on the floor when the Rockets took a 122-121 lead. But there he was, celebrating with Durant, along with the rest of a once-overjoyed Oracle Arena crowd.
For much of his career, Young has been regarded as something of a loose cannon, a player who will get his shots up regardless of the score and in spite of his team’s position in the standings. Perhaps it’s fitting that Young has advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs just once over the last 12 years. That won’t be the case this season.
This summer, Golden State courted Young by sending Green, Durant and Steve Kerr down to Southern California to convince him he could fit in with their championship culture, and Young agreed. On Tuesday, Young carried all the confidence of his old self, and inserted it like a shot of adrenaline into a Golden State squad that needed an early-season wake-up call against the Spurs just a year ago.
Young may have found himself with a more prominent role in the Warriors’ rotation on Tuesday due to the absence of their leading sixth man, Andre Iguodala, who sat out the season-opener with a back injury. Before the game, Golden State head coach Steve Kerr said Iguodala would likely be healthy enough to play when the Warriors start a three-game road trip on Friday in New Orleans.
By halftime, Young had 20 of the Warriors’ 71 points as they jumped out to a nine-point lead over the Houston Rockets, but Young wasn’t responsible for Golden State’s early advantage. Instead, its initial run came thanks to an efficient first quarter effort from guard Klay Thompson, who started the evening 4-for-4 from the field and 3-for-3 from beyond the arc. Thompson scored eight of the Warriors’ first 12 points and 11 of their first 22, but didn’t score the rest of the half.
When Thompson finally cooled off, Young got started, and his first half effort was supplemented from a mini second quarter outburst from Durant, who scored 10 points to help the Warriors regain a double digit edge in the second quarter.
Aside from a late first quarter run from Houston which featured a James Harden three-pointer to cut the Warriors’ lead to 35-34, Golden State remained in command for much of the contest on Tuesday against a team that’s expected to be one of its top challengers in the Western Conference. While the balance of power has shifted even more toward the west in recent years, the difference between the NBA’s two conferences may never be as great as it is at the start of the 2017-2018 season. That commanding lead began to slip away in the fourth quarter, and without Green and Iguodala, the Warriors couldn’t quite finish off a team expected to fight with them until the very end.
A team that took that fight quite literally on Tuesday.