Between the laughs on the bench, you can see it pains Steve Kerr sometimes. It’s those moments that cause Kerr to say, as he did after that Game 2 drubbing from the Rockets, “We got what we deserved.” How, no matter the many exhortations, the Warriors can conduct themselves with the lack of urgency befitting four years as the favorite. Who can blame a team after such a grind? It’s understandable, and only human. It’s unconscionable, and sacrilegious. Kerr gets it. Kerr can’t stand it. His is a cognitive dissonance he’s aware of, as sharply felt as the clipboard he punches into divergent shards.



“It’s embarrassing,” he says per these moments of clipboard-shattering fugue. “At the same time, I do feel like I do need to do that.”



High-level sports jobs tend to select for people who are prisoners to themselves. It’s for those who have a certain quality that might even be at odds with everything...