Golden State Warriors' week-in-review: 11/23- 11/29
New and old lineups that crushed it last week, Steve Kerr's ever-changing rotation, Jordan Poole's improved playmaking, and other assorted thoughts
Who did the Warriors play?
The Warriors played home games against the Philadelphia 76ers and the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday and Friday night and then had a Sunday afternoon game in Los Angeles against the Clippers.
How did they do?
The Warriors went 3-0.
How did that happen?
The Philadelphia 76ers were without Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris, but their tough perimeter defense took the Warriors out of their preferred sets, and the Sixers led by as many as 14 points in the first quarter. Tyrese Maxey and Seth Curry buried the Warriors — specifically, Kevon Looney — in the second quarter by getting downhill on high screens and getting clean looks at the rim and in the mid-range. At one point, the 76ers got their lead up to 19 points, but the Warriors found traction in the final minutes of the half and closed out the half with a mini-run to get the game within 9 points that was punctuated by this impressive halfcourt buzzer-beater from Jordan Poole:
The Warriors opened the third quarter with a 15-5 run to reclaim the lead, but the 76ers steeled themselves and kept the game close enough that there were 10 ties or lead changes after the first Warriors’ lead of the quarter. Jordan Poole’s playmaking was excellent in the third quarter — he had 5 assists and made heads-up plays in transition to create easy layups and threes for his teammates. The Warriors looked to take a 5-point lead into the fourth quarter, but 76ers guard, Shake Milton, hit his own buzzer-beating three to end the period and cut the Warriors’ lead to two points.
The big story of the fourth quarter was the play of Juan Toscano-Anderson, who rewarded Steve Kerr’s trust with his best game of the season. JTA had 9 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, and a steal and block each in the final period, and his aggression and playmaking sparked the Warriors in transition and the halfcourt to give them a 116-96 victory.
Two nights later, the Warriors faced off against the Portland Trail Blazers at the Chase Center but were without Andre Iguodala, who missed his fifth consecutive game, and without Damion Lee, who missed Friday’s night game for personal reasons. Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody played for the Santa Cruz Warriors’ G-League team on Friday night as well, which gave the Warriors 10 active players and shortened Steve Kerr’s rotation during a 118-113 win. Both teams came out with energy and combined for 25 points before five minutes had even been played, but things slowed down to a more natural pace, and the Trail Blazers’ aggressive defense, coupled with unnecessary Warriors’ turnovers kept things close in the first quarter.
The Warriors’ second-quarter lineup was much different on Friday without Damion Lee, and two-way player, Chris Chiozza, got minutes alongside Steph Curry in a lineup that moved the ball around and got the lead up to 8 points. The Warriors struggled defensively in their minutes without Steph Curry in the second quarter and Jordan Poole was on the receiving end of several buckets that allowed the Blazers to get within two points, but the Warriors went on a huge run to end the half behind the lineup of Curry/Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Green, and outscored the Blazers 16-4 in the final minutes of the half.
The Warriors never went on their patented third-quarter run — they “only” outscored the Blazers by five points in the quarter — but they took a 21-point lead into the fourth quarter. That lead evaporated quickly during Chris Chiozza’s minutes as he and Otto Porter Jr. gave up three consecutive three-pointers from the left corner through miscommunication and overhelping in the paint. The Blazers got within 10 at one point, but the Warriors manufactured 10 points in a little more than a minute and a half through clever flex actions that got Andrew Wiggins easy layups, and big shotmaking from Steph Curry.
With the game all but over, Damian Lillard finally came to life and hit two three-pointers — his first of the night — and sparked the briefest of Dame Times, but the Warriors effectively finished the game when they got an 11-point lead with a little more than a minute and a half left on this Juan Toscano-Anderson dunk.
On Sunday afternoon, the Warriors and the Clippers both came out flat and treated fans to an ugly, defensive showdown in the first half. Both teams combined for 21 turnovers, 22 personal fouls, and 9/33 shooting from deep in the first half, the Warriors went 6/13 from the line, and the Clippers crushed the Warriors on the glass with 29 rebounds to their 22, including 11 offensive boards. Considering the circumstances, the Warriors were lucky to go into the half with a 44-42 lead but for the second game in a row, the Curry/Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Green lineup sparked the Warriors’ offense in the final minutes of the second quarter.
The Warriors went on a mini-run to start the third quarter, but their momentum was dulled by a bizarre technical foul attributed to the Warriors’ bench for an offending remark that seemed to be said by somebody in the crowd. In the following minutes, the Warriors racked up several fouls and the game slowed to a crawl, which favored the Clippers. When Steph Curry subbed out of the game, the Warriors’ lead had been whittled down from 11 points to just four. Jordan Poole’s non-Steph minutes were initially rough, but Clippers, center Isaiah Hartenstein woke Poole from his slumber with a blocked layup and taunt that drew a technical foul. In the final 2:17 minutes of the third quarter, Jordan Poole made four consecutive three-pointers, which you can see below. The only problem was that Paul George essentially went bucket for bucket with Poole in those minutes, which kept the Clippers within 7 points entering the fourth quarter.
With a little more than 9 minutes left in the fourth quarter the Warriors up by 9, Steph Curry got as mad as you’ll ever see him and got called for a T when he yelled in the face of a referee after taking contact from Terrence Mann on a fastbreak layup. In the minutes that followed, Curry was directly involved in all but two of the Warriors’ non-garbage time fourth-quarter buckets. Curry hit three points after he got T’d up and hit the ultimate “fuck you” three to put the Warriors up 18 and mockingly threw up the technical foul sign with his hands as the Clippers called a timeout.
Ty Lue subbed in his garbage-time unit shortly after, and the Warriors went home with a 105-90 win, their 7th straight and 18th on the season.
What lineups played lots of minutes this week?
The NBA’s league-average offensive rating bumped up another .3 points relative to last week and has now climbed with each week this season. The league-average 108.2 ORTG is still as low as it’s been since the 2017-18 season, but its stable upward trajectory is something to keep an eye on.
Before we examine last week’s lineups, we’ll take a brief look at the 15 most used 5-man lineups from the entire season, courtesy of Cleaning the Glass:
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/Green/Looney: +12.4 net rating (106.3 ORTG) in 36 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Wiggins/OPJ/Green: +27.3 net rating (113.6 ORTG) in 11 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/JTA/Green: +83.2 net rating (169.6 ORTG) in 11 minutes.
Chiozza/Curry/JTA/OPJ/Bjelica: +30.6 net rating (75 ORTG) in 9 minutes.
Curry/GPII/JTA/OPJ/Bjelica: -14.1 net rating (95.5 ORTG) in 9 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Green: +81.9 net rating (155.6 ORTG) in 8 minutes.
Chiozza/Curry/Wiggins/JTA/Bjelica: -22.2 net rating (88.9 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Chiozza/Curry/Wiggins/JTA/OPJ: +141.1 net rating (228.6 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
Curry/Lee/JTA/OPJ/Looney: -26.4 net rating (111.1 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
The extended absence of Andre Iguodala and the birth of Damion Lee’s first child have put the Warriors down two rotation players for most of the week. Both players will miss Tuesday’s showdown against the Phoenix Suns, so the above lineups might provide a reference point for which lineups Steve Kerr will lean on in the most important game of the early season. The starters struggled to score this past week, but they’ve been a positive lineup for all but the first week of the season and have a +9.2 net rating on the season in non-garbage time minutes. There are only 6 out of 25 lineups in the NBA that have played 100 or more minutes this year that have a better net rating than the Warriors’ starters — that’s a pleasing development.
But here’s where it gets weird — the Warriors’ starters have played 234 minutes together, which is the fifth-most minutes in the NBA of any 5-man lineup. The next most-used Warriors’ lineups have only played 28 minutes together, which ranks around #189 in total minutes together. The Warriors only have 7 lineups that have played more than 5 games together this season, which is quite remarkable, given this team’s 18-2 record. This Warriors team has come out to an 18-2 record, not in spite of, but because Steve Kerr has been flexible with his lineups and rotations.
To that point, the 11 minutes that Poole/GPII/Wiggins/Green/OPJ lineup played together this week were the only minutes that group has played together this season, and yet... they are the Warriors’ 11th most-used 5-man lineup this season. A significant tweak that Steve Kerr made to his rotation this past week was to sub in Otto Porter Jr. alongside Gary Payton II, rather than Nemanja Bjelica. This tweak probably has a fair amount to do with the unavailability of Andre Iguodala, but it has the benefit of giving Poole a more willing shooter in OPJ at the 5 and it allows Kerr to sub in Nemanja Bjelica later in the quarter and attach more of his minutes to Steph Curry
Here’s another observation: Curry/Poole/Wiggins/JTA/Green played 11 minutes this week, which account for more than half of their 19 minutes on the entire season. That lineup played the bulk of crunch-time minutes in the play-in games last season and really only got its first extended run during the Warriors’ 6-0 homestand that closed out the regular season, but Kerr turned to that combo to close out the 76ers and Trail Blazers.
In the absence of Andre Iguodala, who often closed games before his knee swelled up, you can imagine that Steve Kerr might lean on the play-in games’ closing lineup or the Warriors’ second-must used lineup this year — Curry/Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Green, which has a +43.3 net rating in non-garbage time with a 127.9 ORTG and an 84.6 DRTG in 28 minutes this season.
Here are the Warriors’ three-man combos that played >20 minutes last week (positive ones bolded):
Poole/Wiggins/Green: +23.3 net rating (117 ORTG) in 82 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Green: +29.7 net rating (121.6 ORTG) in 62 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins: +36.7 net rating (124.1 ORTG) in 59 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Green: +31.5 net rating (123.6 ORTG) in 56 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/Looney: +3 net rating (97 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
Wiggins/Green/Looney: +2.1 net rating (100 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
Poole/Green/Looney: +3.3 net rating (101.1 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Looney: +11.6 net rating (105.8 ORTG) in 39 minutes.
Curry/Green/Looney: +10.5 net rating (104.7 ORTG) in 39 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Looney: +12.4 net rating (106.3 ORTG) in 36 minutes.
Curry/JTA/OPJ: +22.2 net rating (114.3 ORTG) in 36 minutes.
Poole/OPJ/Green: +16.8 net rating (120.4 ORTG) in 25 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/OPJ: +48.1 net rating (129.1 ORTG) in 25 minutes.
Curry/JTA/Bjelica: +15.4 net rating (100 ORTG) in 24 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/JTA: +62.1 net rating (155.6 ORTG) in 23 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Green: -25.9 net rating (88.4 ORTG) in 21 minutes.
Wiggins/OPJ/Green: +44.9 net rating (131.8 ORTG) in 21 minutes.
Chiozza/Curry/JTA: +20.3 net rating (110 ORTG) in 21 minutes.
Every three-man combo with Kevon Looney listed here scored at a below league-average rate, which is notable. Poole/GPII/Green’s negative net rating is also quite interesting — that same combo is part of the Poole/GPII/Wiggins/OPJ/Green lineup that had a +27.3 net rating in 11 minutes last week, so it seems that this three-man combo struggled immensely when not grouped with Wiggins and OPJ.
Poole/Wiggins: +25.8 net rating (114.8 ORTG) in 88 minutes.
Wiggins/Green: +21.3 net rating (115.9 ORTG) in 88 minutes.
Poole/Green: +15.5 net rating (114.4 ORTG) in 86 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins: +34.8 net rating (123.9 ORTG) in 74 minutes.
Curry/Green: +28.9 net rating (121.6 ORTG) in 63 minutes.
Curry/Poole: +37.8 net rating (126.1 ORTG) in 62 minutes.
Curry/JTA: +30.8 net rating (124.6 ORTG) in 55 minutes.
Wiggins/Looney: +3.8 net rating (97.2 ORTG) in 48 minutes.
Curry/OPJ: +37 net rating (122.2 ORTG) in 48 minutes.
Curry/Looney: +8.9 net rating (106.9 ORTG) in 47 minutes.
Green/Looney: +2.1 net rating (100 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
Poole/Looney: +3 net rating (97 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
JTA/OPJ: +16.7 net rating (113.1 ORTG) in 39 minutes.
GPII/OPJ: +17.2 net rating (106.6 ORTG) in 34 minutes.
Poole/OPJ: +29.5 net rating (124.3 ORTG) in 32 minutes.
Wiggins/JTA: +53.6 net rating (137.7 ORTG) in 31 minutes.
Poole/JTA: +39.9 net rating (27.4 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Wiggins/OPJ: +57.5 net rating (136.9 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Poole/GPII: +/- 0 net rating (98.3 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Again, all the Looney combos struggled to score last week, but I don’t think that’s necessarily an indictment on Looney as much as it is a reflection of how the Warriors’ starting lineup played in first quarters this past week. For whatever reason, that lineup struggled immensely in the first quarters of the 76ers, they came out hot and then came back to earth against the Trail Blazers, and were phenomenal on defense but struggled to score against the Clippers. That same starting lineup did, however, have nice third-quarter minutes and their defense was spectacular all week, which is reflected in every Looney combo having a DRTG below 100. Some other stuff of note: JTA combos crushed it this past week, which lines up with the eye test. This is also true of OPJ combos, although the GPII/OPJ two-man combo scored at a below-average rate.
POOLE WATCH BABY!!!
In terms of raw scoring output, Jordan Poole had a fairly muted week, but his shot selection and playmaking were quite solid, particularly in minutes without Steph Curry. Since the Warriors’ road win against the Brooklyn Nets, Jordan Poole has had a few cold shooting nights, but his in-game management has been pretty solid and he’s demonstrated a more developed sense of timing. Poole is slowly going away from chucking his way out of shooting slumps and is instead leveraging his own reputation as a streaky, but dangerous shooter to make plays for his teammates in transition.
Here are a few examples:
Poole’s dump-pass to a trailing Curry is awesome! It’s also something that we’re used to seeing from Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala and it’s a sign that Poole is learning to anticipate Steph.
Look how Seth Curry peels onto Poole just enough for Draymond Green to have a wide-open lane for cutting down the middle, who gets a dunk off of a no-look pass.
The above play might be the most impressive one because it demonstrates great restraint from Poole. Steph Curry has just gifted Poole an in-rhythm transition three, but Jordan pump fakes and Tyrese Maxey moves with the fake, which gives Steph the small window of opportunity he needs to get a clean shot off after Poole dumps it back to him.
Here are some other fun Poole moments from this week:
In the interest of fairness, I am going to use one more paragraph in this segment to bring up his defense, which has been better than expected for most of the season but got him in trouble against the Portland Trail Blazers. Norman Powell and CJ McCollum gave Poole some trouble in the second quarter of that game because... they attacked on the move and Poole couldn’t stay in front of them. I’m not sure exactly how someone of Poole’s stature is supposed to handle players attacking on the move, which is why I keep harping on my desire for him to do exactly that when he has the ball in his hands.
Jordan Poole’s stats last week:
11/24 vs. the 76ers: 17 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 0 steals and blocks, and 2 turnovers on 5/13 FG, 2/7 3P, and 5/6 FT.
11/26 vs. the Trail Blazers: 14 points, 2 rebounds, 5 assists, 0 blocks and steals, and 1 turnover on 5/12 FG, 2/6 3P, and 2/2 FT in 34:35 minutes.
11/28 vs. the Clippers: 17 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 2 turnovers on 6/16 FG, 4/10 3P, and 1/1 FT in 30:42 minutes.
Through 20 games this season, Jordan Poole is averaging 18.1 points, 3.1 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.2 blocks, and 2.4 turnovers per game on 44/33/92 splits in 30.2 minutes a game.
Here’s a visual representation of Poole’s shot chart this season, courtesy of Positive Residual:
Assorted notes
I’m going to use bullet points here to put together some stray thoughts:
Andrew Wiggins’ three-point shooting is now up to 37.5%, which is only half of a percentage point lower than what he shot from deep last year. What is different, however, is that Wiggins is shooting 29.4% on pull-up threes this season, as opposed to an outlier 39.1% the previous season. Wiggins is taking pull-up threes 0.8 times a game this season and shot them 1.3 times a game last season, so it’s not like they’re a huge part of his game, but this is still a number worth tracking. Here’s another interesting one: Andrew Wiggins is shooting 2.1 midrange jumpers a game at a 39.1% clip, while last season he shot 2.9 a game and converted them at a 37.3% rate.
I’ve now seen Andrew Wiggins pump fake and/or pass out of a long two-pointer three times in the past two weeks, so I made a Twitter thread on those, which you can see below:
The Warriors have four players who qualify for Synergy’s tracking stats on NBA.com’s playtype stats for pick-and-roll man: Nemanja Bjelica (18 possessions), Draymond Green (12 possessions), Otto Porter Jr. (11) possessions, and Kevon Looney (11) possessions). Their respective points-per-possession as the roll man are 0.78, 0.92, 0.91, and 0.46. Looney’s 0.46 PPP is the second-lowest of all qualifying players in the NBA. I’m not entirely that Synergy is getting an accurate count here. Draymond Green only getting 12 possessions this entire season as the roll man seems hard to believe. Is it possible that those numbers don’t take into account possessions where the screener slips the screen? What else could account for the fact that Juan Toscano-Anderson doesn’t qualify for Synergy’s tracking numbers because he’s supposedly had less than 10 possessions as the roll man.
I find it hard to bash Looney though, even though those playtype numbers are rough. Per NBAwowy, the Warriors have a TRB% of 51.2% with Looney on the court and 47.4% when he sits. Looney’s career TRB% is 14.9, which would rank #30 in the league this season, but his TRB% skyrocketed to 19.4%, which ranks #9. By that metric, Looney is grabbing more of the available rebounds on the court than Giannis Antetokounmpo and Steven Adams. Seems good!
Steph Curry now ranks #4 in the league in PPP on ISO’s: 1.32 PPP. He does, however, only ISO 1.8 times a game. As a point of reference, 44 players in the league ISO more frequently than Steph, including but not limited to Caris LaVert, Reggie Jackson, OG Anounoby, and Julius Randle.
Defensive tracking stats are notoriously fickle and hard to trust, but we’ll look at some anyway. Per NBA.com’s player defense dashboard, Juan Toscano-Anderson has the worst DFG% on the team at 49.2%, followed by Jordan Poole at 45.6%, and Damion Lee at 44.3%. Andrew Wiggins rates out at 44%, which is -0.2 percentage points worse than the expected FG of those shots. Jonathan Kuminga, Gary Payton II, Steph Curry, and Chris Chiozza have the best DFG DIFF% of any Warriors’ rotation players with -9.2%, -8.7%, -7.6% and -6.7% respectively.
The notoriously bizarre DFG% stats have been kind to Steph Curry’s defense, as has the eyeball test — he’s been a menace in passing lanes, he’s reaching less than he ever has, and he’s been rugged when he defends in ISO’s — but BBall Index’s Tim Cranjis opened himself up to criticism on Twitter yesterday when he tweeted this about Steph Curry’s defense:
Curry's rating in our Matchup Difficulty is 4th lowest among the 49 PGs with 250+ minutes this year. His On-Ball Defense metric rating is 37th of those 49. He's 1 of 8 PGs in our Helper Defensive Role, which for a PG is the defensive job you stick bad defenders to hide them.Steph Curry's been a sneaky-great defender this season. Love how he doesn't back down and does a good job at forcing turnoversMark Medina @MarkG_Medina
What does this next week have in store for the Warriors?
The Warrior play the two most anticipated games of the season with back-to-back matchups on Tuesday on the road and Friday at home against the Phoenix Suns (17-3 record), who have won 16 games in a row. The Warriors then play at home against the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night.
My prediction for this week
The Warriors will split their matchup with the Suns and win their game in Phoenix but drop the one at home. The Warriors take out their anger the next night on the Spurs to go 2-1 on the week.