When Pachulia entered the league, the average team was making 5.2 3-pointers per game. This past year that nearly doubled to 9.7. His team, the Warriors, made 12.0 per game. But Pachulia? In 14 years, including the playoffs, he is 0 of 28 from the 3-point arc.

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Last summer, when he signed with this sweet-shooting Golden State bunch, you had to think that was going to change. “Thought the same thing, too,” Pachulia told Sporting News in an interview. “But I am still searching, my man, still searching. These guys are not doing a good enough job teaching me to shoot a 3-pointer. I still need some time, one year wasn’t enough.”

Sigh.

Pachulia did think he was going to make one, in a blowout win over Portland in the first round of the playoffs. Most of those 28 attempts, he said, were end-of-quarter heaves. But against the Blazers, he was open. “That was a legit one,” he said. “I shot it and, well, the bad thing is it didn’t go in. The good thing is it hit the rim. I hit the rim.”

No matter. Pachulia is hunting bigger game these days, making the first trip of his career to the conference finals. He is the fifth guy in the Warriors’ starting lineup, the center, easily overshadowed by the starpower of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Kevin Durant. But he has filled his role for the Warriors well, working as a defender, a screener and a rebounder.

Pachulia averaged 6.1 points and 5.9 rebounds this season, playing 18.1 minutes per game for a team that pioneered successful small lineups. The Warriors won 67 games, easily the best in the league, and as he now sits in the Bay Area waiting for the start of the West finals, it sure looks like everything’s turning up Zaza.

“I have been privileged,” Pachulia said. “I have gotten to play for one of the best coaches in my career, and I have picked up a lot from my teammates and coaches about how to play this game the right way.”

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But in talking about how this season went, he admitted it was not always a pleasure cruise.

“If you look at what the roster was that was gathered together from the summer, obviously you had to be excited,” Pachulia said. “This team has been like a motor, playing really well, everything fitting, being on the same page. But to get this point, there was a lot of practice time, a lot of film sessions, a lot of work, so it took some time for us to get on the same page and play basketball like the Warriors, play Warriors basketball.

“We were winning games with our talent, but to get where we were feeling good about our game and our chemistry, obviously it took some time. Even with the best players, there are going to be a lot of mistakes before you finally start playing beautiful basketball.”

More than that, Pachulia heaped pressure onto himself. The Warriors struggled defensively early, especially protecting the middle — the job that had been handled by since-departed center Andrew Bogut — a much-discussed topic among fans and media in Northern California and nationwide. After the first two weeks of the year, the team was four points per game worse with Pachulia on the floor than off.

Because all eyes were on the revamped Warriors and Durant in the early going, Pachulia found himself taking on more criticism than he had in his life.

“I have never been on a team where expectations were so high,” he said. “This is the first time in my career, even though I have been on good teams. This is a totally different animal, right? Everyone is expecting a championship and nothing less. Also, the Warriors are a really hot topic all over the world — a lot of fans, a lot of eyes, a lot of media. Our fans, and opponents’ fans as well, they pay a lot of attention to us. This team had played so well, they had gone to two Finals, with a certain roster.

“Here I am, coming and replacing Andrew Bogut, who was a fan favorite here. Coming here, people were looking, they had seen me play for different teams. But they were looking at, ‘OK, what is he going to do, he is going to replace Andrew Bogut?’”

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Pachulia admits that he didn’t handle those early weeks the right way. You’ve heard plenty of athletes shrug off the notion of outside noise by saying they don’t read the paper or check the media. Not Pachulia. He was on the internet. He read the negative stuff. He listened to the chatter. It was hard on him.

“In the beginning, I was reading a lot, my ears were kind of open and hearing a lot,” Pachulia said. “I think that was not the right thing for me to do. It was affecting me in a negative way after I was reading so much of these critics. But I am thankful to my coaches for telling me and reminding me not to listen to that stuff. The most important thing for me is to listen to my coaches and my teammates, are they comfortable with me being part of this team? They were, and that’s what motivated me, changed my approach.

“When I stopped paying attention to it, the game became so much easier. Because I was worried about the real stuff, not the stuff I shouldn’t be worried about.”

By the end of the year, the Warriors were 6.0 points per game better with Pachulia on the floor. But in the context of those early struggles, it would be understandable if Pachulia had decided that signing with Golden State in the first place had been a mistake. Given the high-paying summer it was for big men all over the NBA — $16 million per year for Timofey Mozgov and Ian Mahinmi, $10 million per year for Al Jefferson — Pachulia opted not to cash in.

He took $2.9 million to fill Bogut’s void and be part of the championship favorites, and the increased scrutiny that entailed. He never regretted it, though, even with the financial risk.

“Two things,” Pachulia explained. “First, it was a risk, right? But I made the decision and the kind of person I am, I don’t regret a decision once I make it. If things don’t go the way I am expecting them to go, then that is just the experience. I am not going to look back and cry about it. But, second thing, I am glad I made the decision because it has been an amazing journey and ride so far. Hopefully, it is going to be better before we finish it because it is a really special moment to be part of this amazing organization. I don’t worry about the money. Dub Nation, it is priceless.”

And maybe by the end of this Warriors’ run, Pachulia will finally knock down a 3-pointer. One can dream. In the meantime, he is just soaking in this experience.

“Sometimes,” he said, “you are in a situation where you want to speed up time, but right now this is the opposite. It doesn’t happen a lot in life. I want time to go very slow so I can do this as much as I can. It wasn’t easy, trust me. There were bumps on the road, a lot of tough moments. But look where we are.”