Steph Curry missed his fourth straight game<\/a> because of soreness in his right knee. Each scored 16 points, one off Pat Spencer\u2019s team-high 17. Horford led the Warriors with nine rebounds, and Santos was second with eight. If scoring and rebounding weren\u2019t enough, Horford\u2019s six assists also were second to only Spencer\u2019s seven.<\/p>\nOutside of Santos, the four other Warriors starters surrounding him combined to be a minus-41. Santos was a plus-11 as the lone Warriors starter to have a positive plus\/minus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a game where the Warriors trailed by as much as 17 and were behind for the most part in a building that was lifeless until the final few minutes, Horford being a whopping plus-24 in 26 minutes off the bench feels impossible. It\u2019s a testament to who he still is and what he still stands for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could not have a better example on the team than Al,\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n
Spencer added: \u201cHe\u2019s unreal. There\u2019s a reason he\u2019s been in the league for that long. Similar to Jimmy [Butler], you get him the ball, the offense slows down. Gets guys organized, he\u2019s going to make the right play the majority of the time. Just very easy to play with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The stories of Santos, Spencer and Horford couldn\u2019t be more different. Santos was the No. 55 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, spent his first full season in the G League and has turned himself from spark off the bench to an important role player. Movie screens are meant to tell Spencer\u2019s story of self belief, going from the best college lacrosse player in the country to switching sports, going undrafted and now years later being a fiery fan-favorite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their Basketball Reference pages don’t quite look the same as Horford\u2019s. Former No. 3 overall pick, two-time college champion and one-time NBA champion, five-time All-Star, one All-NBA and one All-Defensive team. Those are accolades that could one day have Horford enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And his base is built from fundamentals that Santos, Spencer and anybody else can use. His hustle hasn\u2019t stopped either and it\u2019s a guide for those two and all his teammates. The Warriors after going down 10 points with five minutes left against the Grizzlies reeled off a 13-2 run to win the game. Horford in that span had four points, three rebounds, one assist and one steal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just two games prior as the Warriors used a 22-5 run for epic comeback win against the Suns in Phoenix, Horford flew out of bounds and hurled the ball back in bounds with his team ahead by two. A falling Moses Moody found it and tipped it ahead to Melton for a last-second layup full of emotion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a Hall of Fame player,\u201d Steve Kerr said of Horford on Monday night. \u201cEven though he\u2019s 39 he keeps himself in great shape. His fundamentals are incredible. His footwork, his hands, understanding pivots to get out of trouble. That\u2019s four years at Florida, two national titles playing for Billy [Donovan]. He came into the league ready, and then you add 19 years on top of that. All that experience, he\u2019s seen it all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a great player, we\u2019re lucky to have him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fundamentals can be taught. Heart and hustle cannot. Four months from his 40th birthday, Horford still has both as the identity the Warriors have to fully embrace to be a team full of feisty competitors.<\/p>\n
Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO\u2014Scrap, fight, and claw are three words that will keep young players in the NBA on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[869,7,294,293,177,4070,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-597017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-al-horford","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-grizzlies","11":"tag-memphis","12":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","13":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116052976401351208","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}