BOSTON — When Steve Kerr came to the Warriors, it was because the team needed a head coach that would reset the culture in Oakland.
Five straight NBA Finals and a move across the Bay later, it’s obvious that Kerr was able to do that.
The Warriors’ systems are the envy of the league and the team’s environment of positivity and accountability is legendary.
But the Warriors needed something more than a big-picture coach this season, particularly in the NBA Finals.
They needed a tactical master. Someone who could adapt to any situation and deploy his players in the perfect way. They needed someone to handle the micro.
It’s rare to be a quality team visionary. It’s tough to be an X’s and O’s master.
To be both? That would make someone arguably the best coach in the NBA.
And that’s what Kerr proved himself to be this season.
“Man, you’re talking about one of the greatest coaches of all time,” Andrew Wiggins, arguably the poster child for the Warriors Way said after Game 6. “The way he challenges his players but supports them, it’s amazing. He gives his players confidence and he puts his players in position to succeed. So I’m definitely thankful for Steve Kerr.”
Kerr’s adjustments throughout these NBA Finals were critical in claiming the series and a fourth title under his reign for the Dubs.
The early portion of the series saw little between Golden State and Boston. The Celtics might have been the more talented team; the Warriors certainly the more experienced. The basic tactics were on point for both teams from the opening tip of Game 1 in San Francisco.
Starting in Game 4, with the Warriors down 2-1 in the series, Kerr comprehensively out-adjusted Boston’s first-year head coach, Ime Udoka. He worked over the rookie, and it resulted in three straight wins and a fourth NBA title in eight years.
For a coach that has so often defaulted to the Warriors’ ideals, this was a realpolitik performance from the Warriors’ head coach.
And it manifested in his benching of Draymond Green in the fourth quarter of that game.
It was a risky but necessary move. It paid with Green’s finish to that game and finish to the series.
Meanwhile, the Boston coach had one move: imploring his team to stop playing soft.
That stopped working around halftime of Game 4.
The Warriors, meanwhile, tinkered, mixed and matched all the way to the final whistle.
And when Kerr found something that worked, he had no problem pushing the button again and again and again late in the series.
Kerr still had moves remaining. He dared Boston to counter. In the final two games, those counters didn’t come.
The biggest adjustment the Warriors made was in Game 5, when Wiggins was matched with Jayson Tatum for every minute the latter was on the court.
In the NHL playoffs, teams try to match lines — this was Kerr’s hockey play.
Tatum shot 16 of 38 over the final two games was far more of a detriment than benefit to the Celtics over the final two contest. Wiggins had him second-guessing everything.
Earlier in the series, the Warriors had found some success with Gary Payton II in the rotation. He sat in Game 1, but he was an impact player in Game 2. Then, Kerr couldn’t find him big minutes in Games 3 and 4.
That was not a problem in Game 5 or Game 6, though. Kerr played Payton played 46 minutes — a top-five number on the Dubs in the final two games of the Finals — and he had 21 points, eight rebounds, a block and six steals. No one had a better net rating than the Young Glove in the final two contests.
Kerr also staggered Kevon Looney and Green more in Games 5, 6 — their minutes on the court together were limited. Both players were marvelous, but having two non-shooters on the floor proved challenging for the Dubs, even if there were defensive positives.
The final big adjustment that Kerr made was to go against what had been working in the series up until Game 4.
But, trust me, it was a pragmatic move.
The Celtics were keying in on the Warriors’ high pick-and-roll — a system that Golden State avoids on principle but started using heavily in Game 1 because of Boston’s switch-everything defense.
But with Curry scoring 43 points in Game 4, Boston made it clear from the jump in Game 5 that they were going to make anyone but No. 30 beat them.
Kerr foresaw the move and the Warriors ran their traditional motion sets almost exclusively for the final two games. Boston was stuck in no man’s land — the Warriors claimed the title.
There will be countless questions in the coming months about if the Warriors can do it again — can they go on another run of NBA Finals appearances?
There’s one question that won’t have to be asked, in any capacity: Is the right man at the helm for whatever happens next?
Kerr has proven himself four times over now, and this might have been the most impressive coaching performance of the lot.
