How Rick Barry is telling the tale of the Warriors
OAKLAND — Rick Barry had been writing in the wings of the NBA Finals.
The man who brought the Golden State Warriors their first and only championship 40 years ago, who knows all about putting a team on your back on the game's biggest stage, finally left his laptop behind to see the Warriors-Cleveland Cavaliers action in person for Game 5 on Sunday night. He's a regular Ray Barone these days, writing columns for The San Francisco Examiner after the editor, his longtime friend Paul Ladewski, pitched him on the idea a while back.
Everybody Loves Rick, perhaps?
It's a family affair, too, with his sons and former NBA players, Jon and Brent, commanding the national stage as talented commentators for ESPN radio and NBA TV, respectively.
But this has to be fun if you're Rick, right? Everywhere you turn in the San Francisco Bay Area, the stories of his legendary career and what that 1974-75 team did are being re-told and revived now that the modern-day Warriors are nearing the same feat. Or, not so much.
"It's more work, because I'm doing the writing," Barry, who used to host a sports talk show in San Francisco and write occasionally for the San Francisco Chronicle, told Paste BN Sports from inside the Warriors' locker room after their 104-91 win. "I can't just sit and watch the game. I have to analyze. In the Finals, I've been writing every day, other than Saturday. I've been writing in-between (stories on off-days).
"It's been fun, but you've got deadlines to get it in by, you've got to try and do the (work) and figure out what you want to write about. I figured, 'Hey, I'll pay for some of my fishing trips.' "
Talk about preaching to the choir.
As for his analysis of this series that is clearly Golden State's to lose now, you'd almost think the Warriors were on the verge of going fishing themselves with the way Barry sees it. He still hasn't seen the Warriors team that dominated en route to a 67-win regular season, though Game 5 was clearly close. Stephen Curry finally broke loose, turning in a 37-point outing that looked so much like the routine shows he put on during the regular season. But from Barry's perspective, this is nowhere near peak-performance stuff.
"They haven't played more than two quarters of a game," Barry said in a booming voice with Warriors players within earshot and a yellow "Strength in Numbers" shirt on his back. "If they play their game ...
"It's focus. Fortunately (for them), these two games, their defense stayed focused for the majority of the games, and that's what kept them in it. But then they come down, and all of a sudden they forget to make the extra passes like they were doing. They do the one-on-one stuff. They turn the ball over. They allow Cleveland to stay in the game because of those little things. It's like they can't get it all together. There's always something there that screws things up."
Barry has never been one to pull punches, and he had a few for the Cavaliers too. He's amazed by James just like the rest of us, but the Cavs' isolation-heavy offense is enough to turn his 71-year-old stomach.
"Somebody has to help him," Barry said of James, who had 40 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists and according to the Elias Sports Bureau is on track to become the first player to average at least 35 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in the Finals (he's averaging 36.6 points, 12.4 rebounds and 8.8 assists). "I don't think you win championships if your star player has to do so much one-on-one and work so hard. I don't think they make easy shots for him."
Barry knows of what he speaks, having averaged 29.5 points in those Finals in which the Warriors pulled off a stunning upset by sweeping the heavily-favored Washington Bullets. But this, he made clear, is far different than that.
"It wasn't me doing it all," he said of the series in which the Warriors bested the Bullets led by Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes and Phil Chenier. "I mean, we ran stuff to get easy baskets and plays. It wasn't like I just took the ball and went one-on-one. This one-on-one stuff is too hard. I mean, you can't do that all the time. You can't go the entire game and have it be, 'I'm going to go and take this team and do one-on-one stuff.'
"Whatever happened to running something to get an easy basket? ... I've said it before, I'd be getting (James) the ball on the move. The defense, the Warriors, have made it hard on him. He has had to take some really tough shots because they know what's coming now, so they've made some really tough adjustments to it, and they're making him go left most of the time. I kept saying, 'Don't let him go right. Don't let him go right.' If he beats me going left, and he beats me with his outside shooting, I can live with that."
Whether James and the Cavs somehow recover or the Warriors finish this job, Barry — Hall of Famer and resident NBA scribe — will be there to tell the tale.
Follow Sam Amick on Twitter @sam_amick.
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