I am a huge Golden State Warriors fan. You can automatically guess who my favorite NBA player is: the Baby-faced Assassin Stephen Curry. The 4x Champs’ game is heavily dependent on his shooting skills. And he is the best shooter in the world, holding the record for the All-time most 3s. Needless to say, Coach Steve Kerr designed the Warriors’ game plan around their best player.
Even though Curry has unbelievable handles and a soft touch for silky smooth layups, it’s his long-range shooting that dominates the opponents. So, all we got to see was pick-and-rolls, hard screens, off-ball movements, and boom buckets. You can notice that I have opted for the past tense because Kerr has added fresh game plans on the offensive end. All thanks to Jimmy Butler.
Former Miami Heat forward has brought the isolation game to the Warriors’ offensive play. It’s surreal to witness my beloved Dubs play good old classic ball.
This is what usually happens when Himmy Butler runs the play. He brings the ball in, directs the traffic, and asks his men to shuffle. After a brief pause at the arc, Butler passes the ball off a screen and enters the paint.
Here, the magic begins; the clock barely has 10-odd seconds left. If the 36-year-old has a smaller man guarding him, it’s a no-brainer. He would fox him to extract an ‘And 1′ play, and slowly walk to the charity strip. It’s not like he wouldn’t fox bigger men, but ideally, he would pass the ball to the right man for a corner three or a cutting lay-up/dunk.
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It might sound simple in text, but it involves a lot of split-second decisions. Butler just needs a little space under the rim; he will sprint through to either shoot with a 360-degree spin or pass it. There are a lot of risks involved, turning the ball over or going out of bounds. I must say, Jimmy Buckets almost emerges out of the situation with a 100 percent success rate. Those bold plays always stayed on my mind. Sometimes, I even think about it for no reason. Once, I was crossing the road, dodging a couple of vehicles, and ran across. That’s when I thought I should write this outrageous piece.
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Now, I have the tricky task of convincing you that playing in the NBA is basically the same as crossing a narrow Indian road. Hear me out.
My daily office commute is a multi-mode relay. I take my bike to the metro station, hop onto a direct train, and then walk a quick kilometre to work. In between all this, I have to cross two roads.
The first one, a highway, is easy. Wait for the red signal, walk across, done.
But the second?
That’s where things turn into a full-court press.
It’s a narrow road with vehicles flying in like unpredictable fast breaks. Timing is everything. I look both ways because, honestly, bikers are like players cutting in from angles you never see coming. After I reach the halfway mark, the shot clock starts. I pause, hoping no one pulls an unexpected Euro-step to overtake.
Then comes the decision-making, split-second reads, just like running a possession.
If it’s a car approaching, I hold my position and let it roll by. If it’s a swarm of bikes, I take the lane, and the considerate ones adjust like good defenders. The inconsiderate ones? Think Dillon Brooks energy.
But the real clutch moment is when an auto rickshaw and a bike arrive together. That’s when eye contact becomes my version of a pick-and-roll. One of them has to commit; either the biker flies through, or the auto takes the lead, so I can hold my ground until the other clears out.
All of this unfolds in one or two seconds. Pure instinct. Pure read-and-react basketball. Hmm. I guess I really am Jimmy Butler for a reason.