FRANK VOGEL'S WARRIORS DEFENSE IS SHOWING EARLY SIGNS OF BEING PLAYOFF-CALIBER

Warriors associate head coach Frank Vogel was unimpressed when I mentioned during a brief pregame exchange Thursday night that the defense he coordinates is slowly on the rise. “Yeah,” Vogel said, “but we got a long way to go.”

That was apparent an hour later, when head coach Steve Kerr called a timeout less than four minutes into the game after the Miami Heat, coming into Chase Center 21 hours after an overtime win in Los Angeles, sprinted to a 10-point lead. Golden State’s defense started to surface late in the second quarter, closing with an 11-4 run, and turned ferocious in the second half. That, along with Stephen Curry’s third-quarter flurry, generated the wind behind a 120-100 blowout.

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