Steve Kerr Thinks Steph Curry Is Finally Comfortable With Kevin Durant, Which Could Be Terrifying

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The Golden State Warriors are 40-7, giving them the best record in the NBA by 3.5 games over the San Antonio Spurs. However, those seven losses put them on pace for only 68 wins this season, a year after setting the NBA record with a 73-9 regular season.

There were some that expected the Warriors to come close to matching, if not breaking, their own record from 2015-16 after the addition of Kevin Durant in the offseason. That doesn’t seem likely, but after coming out of the gate a bit sluggish and struggling to find their rhythm, it appears as though Golden State is fully operational.

It’s a terrifying proposition that a team on pace for 68 wins could possibly be getting better, but that appears to be the case after a 144-98 beatdown of the fourth-seeded Clippers (sans Chris Paul) on Saturday night. Coach Steve Kerr explained one of the reasons for the Warriors finding mid-season improvement, and it’s that the reigning two-time NBA MVP Steph Curry has finally gotten comfortable playing with Durant.

“I think it’s just feeling comfortable with the lineups and feeling comfortable with KD. I think early in the season Steph was trying to go out of the way to find KD and get him shots and I think he was almost worried if he shot too much it would almost take away from Kevin…

“I think what Steph’s realized is he can just be himself and let it fly. He doesn’t have to worry about Kevin or Klay or anybody else. We feed off of Steph’s energy and shooting. And Kevin is so unselfish, I mean he only had 11 shots today and went 9-for-11. He could be upset. Some guys in his position would be upset. ‘I only got 11 shots and I made nine of them.’ But he loves hit when Steph’s scoring and shooting. So I think just the overall dynamics within the team have been established and in the first half of the season we were probably figuring some of that stuff out.”

Curry, who is averaging 25 points, 6.1 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game on a 46.9/41/91.9 shooting split has just recently gotten comfortable and will be “letting it fly” even more now. That seems to have been the case this month, as Curry is averaging 27.8 points per game in 13 games this January and hasn’t had a night under 20 points.

With the Curry and Durant dynamic figured out, it seems as though the Warriors are ready to steamroll through the rest of the regular season and eye a third straight NBA Finals appearance.

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