Brown gets assist from Kerr during first real crisis in Game 1 win vs Spurs

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OAKLAND -- Just as the San Antonio Spurs were slamming the brakes on the Mike Brown Coaching Express, the acting coach of the Warriors received a few assists to help him keep rolling.

One, he got 26 second-half points from Stephen Curry.

Two, he got 20 second-half points Kevin Durant.

Three, Brown received some suffocating fourth-quarter defense from the Warriors that pushed the Warriors to a 113-111 victory over San Antonio on Sunday.

Four, Spurs star Kawhi Leonard, who scored 26 points through the early minutes of the third quarter, left the game after aggravating a sprained left ankle in the third.

The fifth assist, preceding the other four, were a few words at halftime from ailing head coach Steve Kerr that may have influenced the previous three.

“We met as a staff and then he gave us his points,” Brown said of the halftime dialogue. “We talked about our points, and a lot of it was the same. And then we went back (into the locker room) and I addressed the team. And then we watched the film. And then I addressed the team again. And then Steve said something to the team.”

The Warriors outscored the Spurs 71-49 in the second half. San Antonio shot 52.3 percent in the first half, 42.5 percent in the second. The Warriors shot 34.2 percent in the first half, 60.5 percent in the second.

“It was obvious that we weren’t doing certain things, and that our pace wasn’t quite there,” Brown said of the first half. “To get back to our pace was something that (Kerr) emphasized.”

The Warriors put up five more shots in the second half than in the first, and they outrebounded San Antonio 26-14 after halftime after losing the glass battle 23-17 in the first half.

Kerr, watching on TV from the coach’s office, clearly saw the Warriors in the first half were not the team he had coached them to be. They were a different team in the second half, and maybe some of that was Kerr’s presence and encouragement.

“It's always great to hear Coach Kerr's voice and give his perspective,” Curry said. “It's actually a fresh perspective from somebody who is watching the game, so he sees a lot of different angles and he sees how things are developing from a broader perspective, so that's obviously huge for us.”

Curry caught fire in the third quarter, scoring 19 points as the Warriors trimmed a 20-point halftime deficit to nine (90-81). Durant carried most of the fourth quarter, scoring 12 points, including a dunk with 4:09 remaining that gave the Warriors their first lead since the fifth minute of the game.

Brown made it clear that most anything the Warriors do, in terms of tone and direction, will come from Kerr, who did not attend victorious Games 3 and 4 of the conference semifinals in Utah.

“I’m always going to check through stuff with Steve,” he said. “He’s the head coach and we’re all going to follow his lead, no matter what.”

Brown is now 7-0 as acting head coach this offseason, having coached the final two games of the first-round series against Portland, all four games against the Jazz and Game 1 against the Spurs.

This, however, was the first time the Warriors had been so thoroughly outplayed for so much of the game. They trailed by 14 after a quarter, and by as much as 25 in the second quarter.

Kerr may have felt the silence within Oracle Arena, and Brown experienced it from a courtside seat as the Spurs piled up points and threatened to tarnish the team’s 9-0 record this postseason.

“I just prayed,” Brown joked.

“No, you know we all stayed composed. We have a veteran team. I know Steve is here today, and he saw things from afar that gave us a little bit of life, too, that he relayed to the group and relayed to us as a staff.”

That was enough. In his first real crisis game, Brown got by, with a little help from his friends, none more than the head coach who on this day excelled in the role of assistant.

 

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