It’s fascinating each time Stephen Curry and LeBron James go after each other, as they will Thursday night when Curry’s Warriors face James’ Lakers in Los Angeles.
But another matchup might be even more intriguing.
The venerable superstars, with eight NBA championships between them, will have to share the marquee with their team’s new toys: Jimmy Butler III for the Warriors, and Luka Doncić for the Lakers. The curiosity factor is high.
Neither Butler nor Doncić has won an NBA Finals, but each was acquired in February to pursue that goal. Curry-James has a long and distinguished history of high-stakes hoops, but Butler-Doncić has no postseason story – and no previous game of this magnitude.
The atmosphere will be intense when the ball tips off at 7 p.m. inside Crypto.com Arena. Coverage on NBC Sports Bay Area begins at 6 with "Warriors Pregame Live," with "Warriors Postgame Live" immediately after the TNT telecast.
Golden State (44-31, fifth place in the Western Conference) and Los Angeles (46-29, third place in the West) are among six teams within 2.5 games of each other in the standings. Four will earn playoff berths, with the bottom two headed for the dreaded play-in tournament.
Butler has been a tonic for the Warriors, who were in 10th place with a 25-26 record before his Feb. 8 debut. Their 19-5 record since his arrival has pushed them up the standings. His individual statistics have been impressive enough – 17.5 points, 6.2 assists, 6.1 rebounds, 7.6 free-throw attempts per game – but his reservoir of intangibles has made an extraordinary impact on his teammates.
When Golden State coach Steve Kerr said this week that the Butler trade “saved our season,” there was not a trace of hyperbole.
“He’s just a big-time defender, big-time two-way player,” Kerr said. “Jimmy has made the rest of the pieces fit.”
The trade that sent Butler to the Warriors was stunning, but the deal a few days earlier that sent Doncić to the Lakers was a shocker of such proportions that the widespread initial reaction was disbelief. It rocked the entire NBA.
Doncić, however, has not shifted LA’s season into overdrive. Three of his four highest-scoring games were in losses. He’s shooting 41.5 percent from the field, including 36.1 percent from distance. The intangible impact has been negligible; the Lakers won 62 percent of their games (31-19) before his arrival and have won 60 (15-10) percent since he was added to the roster.
Butler projects to be the first defender on Doncić, as Andrew Wiggins was before Golden State traded him to Miami for Butler. Whoever puts the bigger stamp on the game likely shifts the outcome in his team’s favor.
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