Golden State Warriors week-in-review: 10/25 - 10/31
Who did the Warriors play?
The Warriors played a road game in Oklahoma City on Tuesday night, began an eight-game homestand on Thursday night against the Memphis Grizzlies, and faced the Thunder again at home on Sunday evening.
How did they do?
The Warriors went 2-1.
What happened?
The Warriors fell behind in the first half to a tanking Oklahoma City Thunder team on Tuesday and needed a strong performance from Andrew Wiggins to stay undefeated. The Thunder looked like the better team in the first half and got All-Star level shotmaking from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and high-level playmaking from rookie guard, Josh Giddey. The shotmaking of the young Thunder team forced the Warriors to go small for most of the second half and this is when Andrew Wiggins made his mark on the game as took advantage of a spread floor to get to the hoop and kick it out to shooters from deep in the paint.
Damion Lee and Otto Porter Jr. hit big shots as the Warriors wrestled the lead from the Thunder at the end of the third quarter and the Warriors’ second unit, led by an ice-cold Jordan Poole, managed to win their minutes in the fourth quarter. Steph Curry checked back into the game with 6:18 left in the quarter, but he didn’t score a single point in the period as Andrew Wiggins took the Warriors home for a 106-98 victory. Wiggins’ best drive of the night can be seen below:
On Thursday night, the Warriors dominated the Grizzlies in the first quarter. Draymond Green was everywhere at once on defense and the Warriors had 12 assists and 9 made threes and finished the period with a commanding 17-point lead. At the beginning of the second quarter, the Warriors’ play-by-play announcer/propagandizer, Bob Fitzgerald, wondered out loud if the Warriors’ second unit would hold onto their lead. They did not. In less than 5 minutes, they let the Grizzlies score 13 points and Steph Curry checked back into the game for Jordan Poole to stop the bleeding. The Warriors went into halftime with a precariously held 55-45 lead — the Grizzlies had clearly found some momentum and forced three turnovers in the final minute of the half.
As has often been the case in the Steph Curry/Steve Kerr era, turnovers turned into the game’s big story. The Warriors had 8 turnovers in the third quarter, of which Draymond Green was responsible for four of, and Ja Morant and Desmond Bane combined for 26 points in the period to the Warriors’ 24. Some of the Warriors’ costly second-half turnovers were the result of characteristic recklessness, but the Grizzlies, particularly De’Anthony Melton, deserve a lot of credit for wreaking havoc on D.
Melton had four steals and three blocks in 34 minutes and his hands were everywhere when the Warriors drove to the hoop or tried to get Steph Curry the ball. In the fourth quarter, the Warriors’ second-unit had several aggressive drives to the hoop that Melton snuffed out and in overtime, he had the go-ahead bucket for the Grizzlies and on the very next possession, blocked a Draymond Green layup at the baseline.
The Warriors went 1/6 from deep in overtime and the two looks they got close to the bucket were erased by Melton and Kyle Anderson, which let Ja Morant put the game away with clutch shot-making and give the Grizzlies a 104-101 victory.
Two nights later, the Warriors beat the Thunder at the Chase Center, 103-82, and did what they should have done in their earlier in the week and put the game away early. Draymond Green scored an unexpected 11 points in the first quarter and hit as many threes as the Thunder did in the period (1/2 for Green, 1/11 for OKC). The Warriors’ second-unit grew the lead in their second-quarter minutes and the game might have gotten out of hand before halftime if not for Shai-Gilgeous Alexander making some tough shots.
Steph Curry outscored the Thunder 15 to 14 in the third period to give the Warriors a 24-point lead going into the fourth quarter. The second unit put the game further out of reach and around the six-minute mark of the fourth quarter, garbage time truly began when #7 overall pick, Jonathan Kuminga, made his NBA debut. Kuminga made impressive passes on the drive and in the post but he also had two turnovers and two airballs in garbage time and looked rather fatigued in his short stint.
What lineups played lots of minutes this week?
Before we get started, I’m going to provide a point of reference with ORTG. League average ORTG is at 106.2 right now, which is the lowest it’s been since the 2014-15 season.
Here are the Warriors’ 11 most used 5-man lineups from last week (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/Green/Looney: +13.7 net rating (112.5 ORTG) in 33 minutes
Curry/Lee/Wiggins/Iguodala/Green: +8.3 net rating (88.9 ORTG) in 17 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica: -71.4 net rating (61.9 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Wiggins/JTA/Green: +6.8 net rating (81.8 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
Poole/Moody/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica: +56.3 net rating (100 ORTG) in 8 minutes.
Chiozza/GPII/Moody/JTA/Kuminga: -60 net rating (46.7 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Green: -35.7 net rating (100 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Chiozza/Curry/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica: +45.8 net rating (112.5 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
Poole/Chiozza/Lee/JTA/Looney: +43.3 net rating (83.3 ORTG) in 3 minutes.
Curry/GPII/OPJ/Green/Bjelica: +89.3 net rating (114.3 ORTG) in 3 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Wiggins/OPJ/JTA: +60 net rating (140 ORTG) in 3 minutes.
I reduced our most used lineups down to 11, rather than the typical 15 because so few lineups played more than 3 minutes together. I don’t think there’s much to be drawn from sample sizes under ten minutes but gawk at the numbers anyway. It is encouraging to see the starting lineup put up a positive net rating in its minutes, but my god the second unit — Poole/Lee/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica — was horrible this last week. In 10 minutes spread over three games, that unit shot 35.2% TS and it had a brutal 133.3 DRTG. I’ve provided a screenshot below of the Warriors’ most used non-garbage time lineups this season (courtesy of Cleaning the Glass) so we can compare how the lineups fared this week in the context of the season.
That second unit is still glaringly negative over the entire season, but the starting lineup now has a positive net rating and there are some good numbers from lineups with a Steph Curry/Damion Lee backcourt.
Here are the Warriors’ 15 most used three-man combos from last week (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Wiggins/Green: +11.7 net rating (105.9 ORTG) in 80 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/Green: +3.3 net rating (111.9 ORTG) in 48 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins: +2.5 net rating (110.5 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Green: +2.5 net rating (110.5 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
Wiggins/Green/Looney: +23.6 net rating (117 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Curry/Green/Looney: +23.6 net rating (117 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Looney: +23.6 net rating (117 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/Looney: +12.7 net rating (110.5 ORTG) in 40 minutes.
Poole/Green/Looney: +13.7 net rating (112.5 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Looney: +13.7 net rating (112.5 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Lee/Wiggins/Green: +21.9 net rating (98.5 ORTG) in 31 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Green: +21.1 net rating (95.3 ORTG) in 30 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Wiggins: +18.2 net rating (95.2 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica: +14.1 net rating (96.2 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Poole/Iguodala/OPJ: -10.9 net rating (73.9 ORTG) in 23 minutes.
As usual, the three-man combos that received over 40 minutes are variations of the starting unit. The Curry/Wiggins/Green combo that closes most games is obviously getting lots of run without Kevon Looney, who didn’t play a single minute of fourth-quarter basketball this week. It’s nice to see variants of Poole with the starters come up positive here, but there’s something really interesting I noticed at the bottom of this list: Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica has a positive net rating, despite being part of the Poole/Lee/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica 5-man lineup that rocked a -71.4 net rating on the week and has a -31.2 net rating on the season.
How does that come to be? Well, the Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica three-man combo is typically the first group of guys to sub in during the first quarter, so those three players are getting a healthy dose of minutes with Steph Curry: Curry/Lee/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica has a +85.7 net rating (156.3 ORTG) in 16 possessions, most of which come at the end of the first quarter.
Here are the Warriors’ 15 most used two-man combos from last week (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Green: +12.2 net rating (104.4 ORTG) in 85 minutes.
Wiggins/Green: +13.7 net rating (107.2 ORTG) in 79 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins: +11.4 net rating (106.8 ORTG) in 83 minutes.
Poole/Green: -3.2 net rating (107.2 ORTG) in 53 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins: +2 net rating (108.9 ORTG) in 52 minutes.
Curry/Poole: +1.4 net rating (109.4 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
Poole/Looney: +11.4 net rating (105.3 ORTG) in 44 minutes.
Wiggins/Looney: +23.3 net rating (116.1 ORTG) in 43 minutes.
Lee/Iguodala: -4.2 net rating (88.6 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Green/Looney: +23.6 net rating (117 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Curry/Looney: +23.6 net rating (117 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Curry/Lee: +31.5 net rating (106.5 ORTG) in 36 minutes.
Poole/OPJ: -16.5 net rating (88.9 ORTG) in 35 minutes.
Iguodala/OPJ: +22.2 net rating (100 ORTG) in 34 minutes.
Lee/Green: +13.1 net rating (94.3 ORTG) in 34 minutes.
I was not expecting to see Poole/Green come up negative because they spend a lot of time with the starters, but Green typically subs in before Steph Curry in the second quarter. It’s a small sample size, but the net rating of all the five-man lineups involving Poole/Green without Steph Curry, have a -12.9 rating in 23 possession this season. More surprising was to see Lee/Iguodala grade out negatively on the week, but Gary Payton II has taken some of Lee’s first-quarter minutes with Steph Curry, so it would seem that the Lee/Iguodala is playing most often with the second-unit or in closing lineups, like the one that went 1/5 from three in overtime against the Grizzlies and had its two looks at the basket blocked.
POOLE WATCH BABY!!!
Jordan Poole had his two worst games of the season on Tuesday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder and then against the Memphis Grizzlies. Poole’s jumper completely abandoned him in the Warriors’ first game against the Thunder and for the first three quarters, he tried to shoot his way out of his slump, to no avail. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that Poole reverted to using the Warriors’ motion offense to get open looks and made a point of going to the rack. Poole had six points in as many minutes in that fourth quarter and from that point on, I think he has been making fairly sound decisions about when to attack and when to shoot from deep.
During Thursday night’s game against the Grizzlies, Poole didn’t really chuck bad shots. He actually made aggressive drives to the hoop throughout the game, but De’Anthony Melton forced turnovers on several of his drives, in addition to stripping terrible inbounds pass that Poole threw from the baseline. Poole’s minutes were especially bad in the second quarter when he missed a three and had two ugly turnovers as the Grizzlies trimmed the Warriors’ 17-point lead down to eight in less than five minutes.
Poole cleaned up the turnovers in the Warriors’ Sunday night blowout of the Thunder and finally broke his three-point slump to go 2/6 from deep. A cause for optimism: Poole hit several floaters on Sunday night and is 4/10 on floaters on the year, which is in line with his 50% career percentage on that shot. Poole’s touch on floaters, coupled with his 84% career FT, should give some hope that his shot will eventually come around.
Here are Poole’s numbers for each game this week:
10/26 vs the Thunder: 10 points. 2 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 turnover on 5/14 FG, 0/7 3P, and 0 FT attempts.
10/28 vs the Grizzlies: 9 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, and 6 turnovers on 4/9 FG, 0/2 3P, and 1/1 FT in 23:54 minutes.
10/30 vs the Thunder: 14 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, and 0 turnovers on 6/15 FG, 2/6 3P, and 0 FT attempts in 31:21 minutes.
Through six games, Jordan Poole is averaging 14 points, 2.7 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.2 steals, 0.5 blocks, and 3 turnovers per game on 41/24/83 splits in 27.8 minutes a game.
Here’s a visual representation of Poole’s shot chart, courtesy of Positive Residual:
Assorted notes
I’m going to use bullet points here to put together some stray thoughts:
Kevon Looney comes up as a net positive in the lineup stats for the week, but his performance this season has bummed me out. Looney’s value has always been tied to his ability to contain small guards on the perimeter and his switching defense against the Houston Rockets — and specifically Chris Paul and James Harden — in the 2018 WCF is the stuff of legend, but he’s looked much more vulnerable on defense this season. Ja Morant got wherever he wanted when he drove at Looney. Morant had no issue getting deep in the paint and then stepping back or pulling up for a midrange jumper while Looney backpedaled, unable to recover quick enough to contest the shot. Looney’s defense and rebounding might become more valuable in late games again if Klay Thompson’s return can juice the Warriors’ crunch time offense, but for the time being, there’s no reason for Looney to play closing minutes.
Nemanja Bjelica, the center that closed in the regular-season opener against the Lakers, hasn’t played meaningful minutes in the fourth quarter in quite some time either. Bjelica can be run off the court by teams who spread the floor and force him to close out on shooters — that’s to be expected for a vet minimum center, but what’s more concerning is that he’s only taken 7 threes this season and is averaging a career-low 2.7 3P attempts per 36 minutes. Bjelica’s minutes in Thursday night’s game against the Thunder were hard to watch; he passed up at least five decent looks from deep in the first half, opting instead to pump fake or attack a closeout with a live dribble. Bjelica’s ability to pass out of dribble drives can be very useful, especially when he shares the court with Steph Curry and Draymond Green, but there have been far too many possessions where the second-unit has to take a difficult field goal attempt late in shot-clock because Bjelica passed up a good look.
Otto Porter Jr.’s shot seems to be coming around, but I’d still like to see him shoot more, particularly out of play calls designed to get him an open shot. I can think of more instances this season where OPJ has been the post passer in the Warriors’ split post sets than I can split post sets where he fires from deep. OPJ’s passing has been a nice surprise, but he’s more valuable as a shot finisher on a Warriors team that has plenty of competent passers. I’d also like to call for a moratorium on possessions where OPJ is the roll man in pick-and-rolls, at least until he shows that he can elevate in traffic.
Chris Chiozza made his Warriors’ debut this week and got meaningful minutes on two instances before rookie guard Moses Moody. Chiozza’s minutes were actually pretty ok and he hit open shots, but I don’t think that the value Chiozza provides as a playmaker is more important than the shooting or development of Moses Moody.
Steph Curry is shooting 31.4% on open threes and 31.8% on wide-open threes, per NBA.com. Open and wide-open threes account for 73.1% of his 3P attempts on the season. At some point, Steph’s shooting on easy threes will regress to the mean and when that happens... well, the Warriors should look quite good.
What does this next week have in store for the Warriors?
The Warriors will welcome Kelly Oubre Jr. and LaMelo Ball to the Chase Center on a Wednesday night game against the Charlotte Hornets (4-2 record). On Friday night, they’ll play a putrid New Orleans Pelicans team (1-6) whose star player, Zion Williamson, has no timetable for his return from offseason foot surgery and seems to have ballooned to the approximate size of the late Tractor Traylor. The last relatively easy game that the Warriors will have for a week or two should be a Sunday night game against the Houston Rockets (1-4).
My prediction for this week
The Warriors will go 2-1 and lose Wednesday’s game against the Charlotte Hornets. This Charlotte team has started the season hot thanks to the play of the current favorite to win MIP, Miles Bridges, who is averaging 25 points a game on 48/38/84 splits. Former Warrior, Kelly Oubre Jr. is shooting 39.4% on catch-and-shoot threes for the Hornets because of course he is — it would only be fitting for him to burn the Warriors from deep. And then there’s LaMelo Ball. I won’t waste too many words on how much I wish he were on the Warriors, but I imagine he’d like to have his revenge against the team that declined to take him #2 overall in the 2020 draft.