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SAN FRANCISCO — The Warriors’ team bus had to have a full gas tank as it pulled away from Chase Center for the state capital Monday, but the team won’t have all its fuel.
Defensive stalwart Gary Payton II won’t play in Tuesday night’s play-in game against the Kings at Golden 1 Center, Steve Kerr revealed Monday. Payton, who has been dealing with a strained left calf, also won’t be available if the Warriors beat the Kings and advance to the second play-in game later in the week, against either the Lakers or Pelicans.
Payton would have likely played an important role as an on-ball defender against Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox, at least for small bursts. Instead, that burden will fall on the Warriors’ bigger, rangier players who might not have as much lateral quickness.
“Gary’s a huge piece to our team,” Trayce Jackson-Davis said. “I think we’re going to have to rely on Wiggs, rely on JK, use their athleticism, their speed, their length against Fox. But yeah, he’s a huge piece, and we’re going to miss him tomorrow.”
Payton has had trouble staying on the court this year. A strained right calf sidelined him for 13 games earlier this season. When he returned, Payton played just two games before straining his left hamstring, which held him out for 13 more. He missed the final three games of the regular season with his current ailment.
Payton played 44 games this year — only seven more than Lester Quinones and 11 fewer than Draymond Green, who was suspended for large swaths of the year. Since Golden State re-acquired Payton at last year’s trade deadline, he has played in 63 of 122 possible games.
When he was healthy, Payton made a big impact. Along with Jackson-Davis, Wiggins and Green, he stood out down the stretch as the Warriors made defense their calling card. In the last 10 games of the season, Golden State ranked ninth in defensive rating.
Even offensively — though his counting stats are negligible — the Warriors often look their best when Payton is on the court and healthy. His bounciness gives the Warriors a threatening option along the baseline, and he has always made quick decisions in Kerr’s read-and-react system.
The Warriors expect the rest of their roster besides Payton to be ready for the sudden-death Kings matchup, Kerr said. Sacramento, meanwhile, will be without Malik Monk and Kevin Huerter — two of their top six players.
Without those two wings, the Kings have inserted Keon Ellis into the starting lineup and upped Davion Mitchell’s minutes. Both are strong defenders and have been hot from 3. In April, the Kings ranked second in the NBA in defensive rating.
“We’re prepared for their ball pressure, and I think Mitchell is an excellent on-ball defender, Ellis is really good too,” Kerr said. “We know they’ll be all over Steph (Curry). We’ve got to be ready for everything. They’ve blitzed Steph in the past, they’ll hit him in the halfcourt with a double team. We’ve got to have our spacing right and make sure we’re executing.”
Quick hitters
— In a subplot that wasn’t on anyone’s radar, Klay Thompson passed Steph Curry for the league lead in free throw percentage in the regular season finale. Thompson didn’t even qualify for the title until he was fouled early in the game on a 3, which gave him 125 foul shot attempts on the season — the minimum to qualify.
Curry had the lead entering Game 82 at 92.3%, but Thompson overtook him with a season mark of 92.7% by going 5-for-5 against the Jazz. It’s the first time in Thompson’s career that he led the NBA in any statistical category outside of games played.“I had no clue until (Warriors vice president of communications Raymond Ridder) told me today,” Curry said. “I knew I was up there, percentage-wise, pretty much all year… But I had no clue Klay was ineligible until the last game. He made all five, so shoutout to him.”
— Kerr said he believes the Warriors have earned good “karma” heading into the last game. Karma doesn’t win games; many teams have felt a good vibe before getting eliminated early in the playoffs. But according to Kerr, Golden State’s locker room is in a good place.
They’ve overcome adversity like the death of assistant coach Dejan Milojevic and the tumult of Draymond Green’s suspensions. They’re playing with joy, which translates to better performance.
“As a coach, you can just kind of feel it,” Kerr said. “I’ve been very frank, I didn’t feel it last year. So this year, I’ve felt it. It doesn’t mean we’re going to win, but I think we have a better chance of really making a push this year than we did last.”
— Asked if this team still needs to show more to justify keeping its core group together going forward, Curry said he’s not concerned about conversations about next season.
“I think it’s pretty obvious it’d be a disappointment if we’re not in a playoff series and have an opportunity to compete at that level. You can make up whatever narrative that would bring up, but right now, I think it would rob the opportunity we have this week and hopefully going into a playoff series. I think it’s important we stay in that mentality and not really worry about anything else.”
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