Kevon Looney’s big Game 5 puts him in exclusive club with Wilt
Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond
Golden State Warriors’ Kevon Looney rebounds his way to history in
pivotal Game 5 win against Sacramento Kings
>Golden State Warriors’ Kevon Looney (5) dunks against Sacramento
Kings’ Harrison Barnes (40) in the second half of Game 4 of the NBA
Western Conference first-round playoffs at the Chase Center in San
Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, April 23, 2023. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area
News Group)
By SHAYNA RUBIN | srubin@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: April 27, 2023 at 12:32 a.m. | UPDATED: April 27, 2023 at
4:25 p.m.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/04/27/kevon-looneys-big-game-5-puts-him-in-exclusive-club-with-wilt-chamberlain-nate-thurmond/

SACRAMENTO — Kevon Looney, Wilt Chamberlain and Nate Thurmond are the
only three Warriors to accomplish one feat.

Looney’s 22 rebounds not only helped lock in the Warriors’ pivotal Game
5 win against the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night, but lobbed him
into an exclusive club with the two Hall of Famers as the only Warriors
in history to have multiple 20-plus rebound games in a single playoff
series. Chamberlain did it seven times and Thurmond five times.

Looney has done it once. Now, with a 20-rebound Game 3 — without
Draymond Green — and Wednesday’s game.

The Warriors’ big paused at his cramped locker at Golden1 Center to grin
when he heard the stat.

“Wow,” he said. “Now that’s something I’ll tell my grandkids about.”

Looney’s Warriors career hasn’t been defined by individual numbers. His
first NBA years were curtailed by hip surgeries, painstaking rehab and
seasons spent collecting dust at the end of the bench. When healthy, he
became cult Warriors fandom hero — a quasi-big holding fort for a
small-ball oriented team during the Kevin Durant era. He’s a big who has
consistently outlasted the centers this organization has tried often to
replace him with — James Wiseman, Jordan Bell, to name a few.

Now he’s a cog that keeps this aging dynasty chugging with a few
individual numbers he can have framed for the mantle. Head coach Steve
Kerr has called him the “moral compass” of the team. Draymond Green
calls him a stabilizing force — the veteran who can neutralize the
Warriors’ big runs and sloppy play with his own brand of consistency.

“Kevon has become like an Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston. A calming
force. When we were a lot younger in this run, we had those guys —
Shaun, Andre, the list goes on — those two guys in particular that, no
matter what was going on,” Green said. “I started turning the ball over.
Steph goes haywire, Klay (Thompson) goes haywire. They would come in and
calm us down. Kevon is that for this team. He’s that stabilizing force
that allows everyone else to focus on what they need to focus on.”

Seven of Looney’s 22 rebounds on Wednesday were offensive boards that
helped fuel the Warriors’ 18 second-chance points.Looney had the box-out
edge on Kings center Domantas Sabonis down the stretch that helped the
Warriors keep a slight second-half edge.

The Warriors don’t win three straight after starting down 2-0 against
the Kings without Looney out-playing Sabonis. He has 72 total rebounds
to Sabonis’ 58.

“With this matchup, with Domas (Sabonis) being a key piece, I don’t care
what Looney says, he’s playing with a chip on his shoulder,” Donte
DiVincenzo said.

Sabonis came into the series the prized center, earning third-team All
NBA not only for the way he facilitates the Kings’ high-speed offense,
but his domination under the rim. He averaged a double-double this
season with 19 points and 12 rebounds per game. Sacramento was supposed
to have that Sabonis edge.

Forgotten outside of the Warriors’ locker room was Looney’s playoff
history. He gets rebounds when his team’s season depends on it.

Around this time last year, Steph Curry and Draymond Green hand picked
Looney to start in Jonathan Kuminga’s place for Game 6 of the Western
Conference semifinals. Up 3-2 against the feisty Memphis Grizzlies, the
Warriors’ veterans knew he’d be their best option to combat center
Steven Adams, who’d been owning them on the glass.

Looney responded with a 22-rebound game as the Warriors clinched a
Conference Finals spot.

“The expectation of how he impacts games at this stage of the playoffs
and how important that skillset is, I don’t know how he does it,” Curry
said. “It’s a relentless effort but a knack for knowing where to be and
the attitude that every ball that comes off the rim is his.”

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Now Looney and Co. get to play Game 6 with their first lead in the
series and a chance to clinch a second-round spot. They’ll get to do at
Chase Center, too, under the Chamberlain and Thurmond jerseys that hang
in the rafters.

“For him to join any list with those two guys on there speaks to how
special of a player he is,” Curry said.

--
Shayna Rubin | General Assignment Sports Reporter
Shayna Rubin is a Bay Area News Group sports reporter for The Mercury
News and East Bay Times. She covered the Oakland A's from 2019 to 2021
and, most recently, the Golden State Warriors' championship run in 2022.
Shayna is a San Francisco native. She is a graduate of San Francisco
State University with a BA degree in journalism and a MA degree in
broadcasting and electronic communication arts.