Tim Kawakami

1 week ago | sfstandard.com | Tim Kawakami

“We’re fine,” Butler said. “Our confidence isn’t going to waver any. We’re going to start out better, we’re going to play a better overall game. Because we know how good we are as a team as a unit, we know how good our players are as individuals.”They did it in 2022 with different supplementary players, against a different team, and when Curry and Draymond were three years younger. But the Warriors are not shocked to be here. They should not get demoralized by this loss.

2 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Tim Kawakami

But those are football decisions. This seems like a team that’s trying to build up the roster again, not tear it down. If you want to look at it optimistically, this feels like a team that has mostly gotten its finances where it wants them and now can budget new deals for the players who need them.

2 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Tim Kawakami

Jimmy Butler and his badly bruised backside probably should’ve been anywhere else in the world other than banging around with Dillon Brooks, Steven Adams, and the Houston Rockets at Chase Center on Monday. He didn’t run at full speed. He could barely jump. Butler winced, gritted his teeth, jogged with a hitch in all parts of his giddy-up, but just inexorably kept going. Mostly in pained slow motion. “The first three quarters, he couldn’t move,” Draymond Green said.

2 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Tim Kawakami

Draymond and Jalen Green had plenty of things to say to each other after the buzzer, of course. It’s all fair and feisty in playoff competition. No young team like the Rockets was ever handed anything by a team as experienced and accomplished as the Warriors. They’ve got to fight for it. There’s no sin in yapping at the Warriors, basically.

2 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Tim Kawakami

Kyle Shanahan chuckled, flashed an uncharacteristically warm smile, and turned to John Lynch before I was done with my question on Friday night, because Shanahan couldn’t hide what he was feeling and truly didn’t want to. He and Lynch have been through some things this offseason — mostly the painful parade of productive and popular veteran players heading out the door to other teams as the 49ers made huge cuts to their payroll.