Golden State Warriors week-in-review: 11/1-11/7
The emergence of Gary Payton II, Jordan Poole gets hot, and Steve Kerr tweaks his rotations in a big way.
Who did the Warriors play?
The Warriors played the Charlotte Hornets, the New Orleans Pelicans, and the Houston Rockets at the Chase Center.
How did they do?
The Warriors went 3-0.
What happened?
The Warriors swept through their competition this week as Jordan Poole finally broke out of his shooting slump and Gary Payton II carved out a permanent place in Steve Kerr’s revamped rotation.
Wednesday night’s game against the Hornets was billed as a showdown between LaMelo Ball, and Steph Curry, but ended up being the Jordan Poole and Gary Payton II show. On a night where Curry missed bunches of shots and repeatedly coughed the ball up in inexplicable fashion, Jordan Poole picked up the offensive slack. After a Steph Curry-led second-unit — a wrinkle in Steve Kerr’s new rotation — fell behind in the early second quarter, Poole checked in around the six-minute mark and proceeded to make four of his five three-point attempts and drag the Warriors back into the game.
The Warriors got some separation from the Hornets in the third quarter after Gary Payton II checked in alongside Nemanja Bjelica, but Charlotte pulled within 8 points early in the fourth quarter. Steph Curry had 10 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter, but it was Gary Payton II who put the game away with dominant defense that sparked the Warriors’ transition offense. Payton II effectively put the kibosh on the game with a steal on LaMelo Ball, which you can see below, but his defense was so irritating that at one point, Ball refused an inbounds pass in order to avoid Payton II.
Two nights later, the Warriors snoozed through the first half of their game against a short-handed New Orleans Pelicans game before running them off of the court in the third quarter.
The Pelicans were without Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, so this should have been a fairly easy game, but the Warriors played down to their competition in the first quarter as Jonas Valancuinas bullied his way to the hoop and struggling shooters like Nickeil Alexander-Walker found their stroke. Gary Payton II and Nemanja Bjelica sparked the Warriors when they checked in during the first quarter as Bjelica’s renewed willingness to fire without hesitation from deep opened up the floor.
The Warriors should have put the Pelicans away in the second quarter, but an extended team-wide shooting slump ruined some beautiful ball movement and brilliant play calls by Steve Kerr. During that slump, the Warriors ran three Steph Curry/Andrew Wiggins pick-and-rolls, all of which ended up in wide-open three-point shots that simply did not go in. This was, as far as my memory serves, the first repeated instance of the Curry/Wiggins PNR, but the Warriors’ inability to hit open shots let the Pelicans stay within four points at halftime.
During the third quarter, the Pelicans ran out of steam after... Gary Payton II and Nemanja Bjelica checked in — sound familiar? — and the Warriors grew a 10 point lead to 22 points in just six minutes. Steve Kerr, sensing an opportunity to put a quick end to the game, trotted out Steph Curry and Jordan Poole for early fourth-quarter minutes. That 22-point lead became a 32-point lead with less than four minutes into the period and soon after, an uneventful stint of garbage time began and the Warriors went home with a 126-85 win.
The Golden State Warriors won their fourth game in a row two nights later with a 120-107 victory against Houston Rockets. From the first minutes of the game, the Warriors were the aggressors — Draymond Green pushed the ball off of defensive rebounds and looked to scramble a young and inexperienced Rockets team in transition, and Jordan Poole attacked the paint and finished the quarter with 15 points and 7 free throw attempts. Steph Curry’s revamped substitution rotation pattern took him out for a brief stint in the first quarter and later in the half, foul trouble would cause him and Draymond Green to sit for an extended period.
The Warriors led 37-32 at the beginning of the second quarter and Andre Iguodala’s planned rest allowed Steve Kerr to give rookie guard, Moses Moody minutes in the second unit. Moody played his role to a T, but he missed all of his three-point attempts in the quarter and the second unit let the Rockets pull within four points when Steph Curry and Draymond Green subbed back in and... promptly gave up the Warriors’ lead. When Curry and Green got into foul trouble, the Warriors got huge contributions from Otto Porter Jr., Nemanja Bjelica, and Gary Payton II. Bjelica’s kick-outs found open shooters, Payton II’s defense and cutting were typically excellent, and Porter Jr. railed back-to-back-to-back threes at the end of the half to give the Warriors an 8-point lead.
The Rockets played the Warriors’ starters evenly in the early minutes of the period, but the Warriors took a commanding lead shortly after Payton II and Bjelica checked in. As was the case in the second quarter, the Payton II/Bjelica duo galvanized the Warriors — the defense tightened up, the ball moved all over the court, and Payton II electrified the crowd with a lob from Draymond Green using one of JaVale McGee’s old PNR sets:
The Warriors led by 20 points at the beginning of the fourth quarter and the Jordan Poole-led second unit kept the Rockets at enough of a distance that Steve Kerr was able to give rookie guard, Moses Moody, some extended run. Jonathan Kuminga eventually got a minute and a half of garbage time, but Chris Chiozza inexplicably got on the court before the Warriors’ top rookie draft pick. Chiozza’s minutes have been a minor nuisance, but complaining about such things when the Warriors have an 8-1 record — albeit, against a very soft schedule — seems rather trivial.
What lineups played lots of minutes this week?
As we did last week, we’ll start this section of the week-in-review by providing a point of reference for league average offensive rating. League average ORTG is now at 107, which is still as low as it’s been since the 2015-16 season, but .8 points higher than it was last week when it was 106.2. The Athletic’s Seth Partnow pointed out in a recent article that ORTG has a tendency to increase over the course of the season — it would be extremely unusual if league average ORTG stayed this low, but it’s still possible that rule changes and a new regulation NBA ball will continue to depress this season’s ORTG relative to previous seasons.
Anywho, let’s get into the lineups. First, a screenshot of the 15 5-man lineups that have played the most minutes this year, courtesy of Cleaning the Glass — having the lineup data for the entire season will help us compare how specific lineup combos from this week performed relative to their season-long trends.
Now, here are the Warriors’ 10 most used 5-man lineups from last week (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/Green/Looney: +13.5 net rating (107.4 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Iguodala/JTA/OPJ: +1.1 net rating (115.4 ORTG) in 7 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Igoudala/Green/Bjelica: +86.7 net rating (140 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Wiggins/OPJ/Green: -79.1 net rating (28.7 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Iguodala/JTA/OPJ: +44.4 net rating (125 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Moody/JTA/OPJ: -40 net rating (70 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Moody/OPJ/Green: -28.6 net rating (114.3 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Wiggins/Green/Bjelica: +64.4 net rating (144.4 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Poole/Wiggins/Green: +78.2 net rating (118.2 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Wiggins/Green/Bjelica: +10 net rating (90 ORTG) in 3 minutes.
We don’t have a lot of numbers on the various combos that Steve Kerr tried out in his new rotation, so let’s just talk about the outlines of these new substitution patterns — Steph Curry is subbing out around the three and a half minute mark of the first and third quarters before coming back in with about a minute left in the period. Against the Hornets, Curry did not come back in the first quarter and instead played the entire second quarter and nearly all of the fourth quarter. These substitution patterns seem to be changing with every game, so nothing is fully set in stone, but it’s worth asking if Steph Curry’s meh week has anything to do with these new rotations.
Back to the numbers…
The Warriors’ starting lineup put together its second straight week with a positive net rating, which is reassuring after they were absolutely brutal to start the season. The starting 5 scored at a rate just barely above league average, but they were excellent on defense this past week. On the season, the starting 5’s DRTG ranks in the 53rd percentile, their stellar defensive performance this past week should be taken with a grain of salt — the Warriors did play the tanking Rockets and a spiraling Pelicans team.
Some other things that stick out:
5-man lineups with the fabled GPII/Bjelica duo were just as good on paper as they were by the eye test. We don’t have a huge sample size for 5-man lineups with GPII/Bjelica for the entire season yet, but CTG has all but two of those lineups that played >5 minutes as hugely positive. Bjelica is an excellent passer in the frontcourt and Payton II is one of the more explosive guards in the league and the Warriors have had raging success inverting their offensive sets to have GPII operate as the C on offense while Bjelica handles at the top of the key. Here’s one such example:
It might be a shock to see Curry/Lee/Wiggins/OPJ/Green rock a -79.1, but that lineup got crushed during the second quarter of Friday night’s game against the Pelicans when the Warriors missed more than straight 10 three-point shots. As I wrote in my recap about that game, Steph Curry/Andrew Wiggins PNR’s created three wide-open looks from deep that bricked during a 5-minute stint where the Pelicans outscored the Warriors 11-4 — it’s not a surprise that this lineup had a very negative net rating for the week, but it’s not one they really deserved.
Here are the Warriors’ 18 most used three-man combos from last week (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Wiggins/Green: +7.3 net rating (100 ORTG) in 57 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/Green: +28.3 net rating (116.2 ORTG) in 54 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins: +20.1 net rating (109.6 ORTG) in 48 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Green: +21.7 net rating (109.8 ORTG) in 46 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/Looney: +19.3 net rating (112.6 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Looney: +10.6 net rating (106 ORTG) in 39 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Looney: +10.6 net rating (106 ORTG) in 39 minutes.
Wiggins/Green/Looney: +13.5 net rating (107.4 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Poole/Green/Looney: +13.5 net rating (107.4 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Curry/Green/Looney: +13.5 net rating (107.4 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Bjelica: +48.7 net rating (121.4 ORTG) in 23 minutes.
GPII/Green/Bjelica: +71.9 net rating (141.3 ORTG) in 21 minutes.
Curry/Lee/OPJ: -42.3 net rating (58.8 ORTG) in 20 minutes.
Lee/JTA/OPJ: -13.9 net rating (110 ORTG) in 18 minutes.
Poole/Lee/JTA: +30.7 net rating (105.7 ORTG) in 17 minutes.
Curry/Iguodala/OPJ: +7.3 net rating (113.2 ORTG) in 16 minutes.
Lee/Moody/JTA: +20.5 net rating (102.9 ORTG) in 16 minutes.
GPII/Wiggins/Bjelica: +41.7 net rating (133.3 ORTG) in 16 minutes.
I set our threshold for three-man combos to be >15 minutes played together and expanded our list beyond the 15 most used combos because so many of the top combos are variants of the starting lineup. It isn’t until we get to the 11th most used combo, Curry/GPII/Bjelica, that we see any combos that include bench players. It should come as no surprise that the three combos here that include GPII/Bjelica were hilariously good this week. Curry/Lee/OPJ was part of the 5-man combo of Curry/Lee/Wiggins/OPJ/Green that had a terrible net rating this past week — the three-man combo’s -42.3 net rating makes some sense with that context applied, but they’ve had a +6.7 net rating this year, so their bad performance this week shouldn’t cause concern.
Another weird number that probably means nothing in the grand scheme of things; Curry/Wiggins/Green scored 7 points below league average ORTG, but that combo is part of the starting lineup’s 107.4 ORTG from this past week. Again, I think the cold streak of Curry/Lee/Wiggins/OPJ/Green lineup against the Pelicans is really messing with some of our sample sizes.
Here are the Warriors’ 18 most used two-man combos from last week (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Wiggins: +6.9 net rating (102.1 ORTG) in 66 minutes.
Green/Wiggins: +13.6 net rating (105.7 ORTG) in 65 minutes.
Poole/Green: +31.3 net rating (118.7 ORTG) in 64 minutes.
Curry/Green: +16.5 net rating (105.8 ORTG) in 64 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins: +24.1 net rating (116.1 ORTG) in 63 minutes.
Curry/Poole: +22.1 net rating (110.6 ORTG) in 51 minutes.
Wiggins/Looney: +15.6 net rating (110.1 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
Poole/Looney: +19.3 net rating (112.6 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Curry/Looney: +10.5 net rating (104.7 ORTG) in 40 minutes.
Lee/JTA: +12.6 net rating (108.9 ORTG) in 39 minutes.
Green/Looney: +13.5 net rating (107.4 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
GPII/Bjelica: +55 net rating (136.9 ORTG) in 36 minutes.
Lee/OPJ: -19.1 net rating (97.3 ORTG) in 36 minutes.
Curry/GPII: +50.7 net rating (125 ORTG) in 30 minutes.
Curry/Bjelica: +51 net rating (128.2 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
GPII/Wiggins: +49.5 net rating (128.8 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
GPII/Green: +72.4 net rating (136.8 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Curry/OPJ: -26.9 net rating (90.6 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
There are lots of positive duos here, which is what should happen when you beat up on two bad teams. It’s not typical to see Steph Curry duos with a below-average ORTG, but over the last three games, Curry averaged a very mortal 18 points a game on very mortal 41/34/100 splits, so that’s as good an explanation as any for those low ORTG’s.
Again, Gary Payton II was practically infallible this week, as was Nemanja Bjelica. Not much of a surprise there. Out of curiosity, I dug up the numbers for two-man combos over the entire season and found that Payton II doesn’t show up in these numbers until you reach the 30th most used two-man combo for the season: Steph/GPII, which has a +42.2 net rating with a 122 ORTG in 51 minutes. The GPII/Bjelica duo got most of its minutes this season during this past week — on the season, that duo has played 50 minutes together and has a bonkers net rating of +46.9 with a 135.4 ORTG.
When you filter for all duos in the NBA to play 50 or more minutes this season, the three highest net ratings belong to GPII/Bjelica, Curry/GPII, and Curry/Bjelica. The difference between the net rating between the #1 ranked duo of GPII/Bjelica and the #4 ranked duo of the Denver Nuggets’ Aaron Gordon and PJ Dozier is equivalent to the difference between the #4 ranked duo and #64 ranked duos of Royce O’Neale/Hassan Whiteside and Chris Boucher/Khem Birch. Seems good!
POOLE WATCH BABY!!!
Jordan Poole’s shot came around in explosive fashion in Wednesday night’s victory against the Charlotte Hornets. Poole went 6/9 in the first half of that game and then proceeded to go 1/6 in the second half, so it wasn’t all great, but I’m not opposed to Poole shot hunting on nights when he gets hot. Poole followed up his breakout shooting night with consecutive 20-point games against the Pelicans and Hornets and outscored Steph Curry in both games. Poole’s performance this past week allowed the Warriors to survive a quiet week from Steph Curry. Against solid teams like the Charlotte Hornets, the Warriors should not always rely on big performances from Jordan Poole, but against bad teams, it’s probably sustainable for Poole to take on a bigger offensive burden while Curry hangs back.
The Warriors, especially those in the organization who were there for the championship years, seem intent on pushing Poole to not merely be content with beating up on bad teams. After Poole’s 26-point night against the Pelicans, Andre Iguodala had a rare appearance at the podium post-game and talked about how Poole could continue to improve his game: “We gotta get him to the foul line. I think that’s the next phase for him — not relying on having 26 with zero free throws. I think he had 31 last game with zero free throws. He likes those Klay (Thompson) stat lines. He had no rebounds and, oh, he had an assist.” Two nights later against the Rockets, Poole had 7 free throw attempts in the first quarter and by the end of the game, he’d more than doubled his amount of FT attempts on the season.
Poole’s ability to quickly take and implement criticism about his game and his shortcomings is very encouraging. In the preseason, Steve Kerr harped on the need for Jordan Poole to play competent to the defense, to that point that Kerr would snap and call timeouts early in games to berate his young guard for falling asleep and losing cutters off-ball. Three weeks into the season, there’s barely been a peep about Poole’s defensive shortcomings and he’s only a part of three 5-man lineups that have played significant minutes and struggled on defense — one of those lineups (Curry/Poole/Wiggins/Green/Bjelica), has been so good on offense that they’re still winning their minutes with an absurd 150 ORTG.
To bring it back to Jordan Poole’s last week, it was great to see his shots fall, but what I enjoyed most was how he’s improved his offensive approach. In the first few games of the season, Poole was prone to overdribbling, but he would typically make corrections in the second half of games and start hunting shots within the flow of the Warriors’ motion offense rather than trying to cook his defender. Outside of the second half of the Hornets’ game when the Warriors already had a substantial lead, Poole mostly played in the flow of the offense this week — there were few instances of him overdribbling, although he still has a penchant for picking up his dribble deep in the paint without a plan, and he took very few dumb shots.
Here are Poole’s stats for the week:
11/3 vs the Hornets: 31 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 4 steals, and 1 turnover on 11/21 FG, 7/16 3P, and 2/2 FT attempts in 32:26 minutes.
11/5 vs the Pelicans: 26 points, 0 rebounds, 1 assist, 0 stocks, and 1 turnover on 10/15 FG, 6/9 3P, and 0 FT attempts in 27:51 minutes.
11/7 vs the Rockets: 25 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal, and 3 turnovers on 7/13 FG, 2/7 3P, and 9/9 FT in 29:50 minutes.
Through nine games this season, Jordan Poole is averaging 18.4 points, 2.6 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.3 blocks, and 2.6 turnovers per game on 47/35/94 splits in 28.6 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:
Gary Payton II’s emergence has coincided nicely with Nemanja Bjelica willingly shooting from three again. Bjelica is now shooting 55.6% from deep and surprise, surprise — defenders are closing out aggressively on him again, which is making it easier for him to pump fake and drive.
Otto Porter Jr. had himself a nice week and took 14 of his 30 attempts from three this season in the last three games. OPJ is shooting 46.7% from deep now and this past week, Steve Kerr played him almost exclusively as the nominal 5 alongside Juan Toscano-Anderson in bench units or next to Draymond Green or Bjelica with the starters. Not coincidentally, Porter Jr. has spent less time getting defending small guards on switches, and the Warriors’ new small ball second-unit is defending with vigor and making tight rotations.
Lost in the last week has been the underwhelming play of Andrew Wiggins. Outside of some aggressive drives on the short roll from PNR’s with Steph Curry, Wiggins was reluctant to drive to the hoop and went back to settling for midrange jumpers out of post-ups and ISO’s. Wiggins shot 3/17 from deep in the last week and is now shooting 34% on the season, which is in line with his career average of 34.1% from three. Last season, Wiggins shot a career-high 38.1% from deep, bolstered in part by an outlier 39.1% on 1.3 pull-up three-point attempts per game. Through 9 games, Wiggins is taking one pull-up three per game and is shooting them at a 22.2% clip, which would be his lowest percentage since his rookie year. That number should climb, but this team doesn’t really need Andrew Wiggins to take pull-up threes, nor do they need him to have 35 combined attempts from the non-restricted area paint (35%) and mid-range (33.3%) against 37 attempts in the restricted area.
It is a testament to the depth of this Warriors team that Damion Lee, who closed most of the first games of the season, had a fairly quiet week and the Warriors didn’t suffer for it.
Andre Iguodala’s planned rest against the Houston Rockets gave Moses Moody a chance to play meaningful minutes, but he missed all three of his shots from deep and didn’t make a credible claim to additional minutes at Damion Lee or Gary Payton II’s expense.
Otto Porter Jr., who has an extensive and concerning history of injuries, will miss his first game of the season on Monday night against the Atlanta Hawks with what is being described as “left foot injury management.” The use of the phrase “management” implies that this isn’t something serious, but OPJ’s health is worth monitoring and his absence will open up minutes at the 4/5. Jonathan Kuminga is unlikely to snag those minutes as Steve Kerr has been reluctant to play him outside of garbage time, so my guess is that Andre Iguodala plays up at the 4 and Moses Moody slots in at the 2/3 in OPJ’s absence.
Jordan Poole is shooting 70.3% from the restricted area and 50% on floaters, which is perfectly in line with him shooting 70% from the restricted area and 50% on floaters last season. What is wildly different, however, is that last season Poole was assisted on 68.3% of his makes in the restricted area, whereas this season, 57.7% of his makes in the restricted area have been unassisted. To put into more easily digestible numbers: Poole had 20 unassisted makes in the restricted area last season, he’s already up to 15 unassisted makes in the restricted area through 9 games.
Steph Curry has still looked mortal for the majority of the season and is shooting merely 30.8% on open threes, 36.4% on wide-open threes, and 32.2% on pull-up threes. Curry is shooting 55.6% in the restricted area, which is the lowest he’s shot in that range since his 2012-13 season. Monday night’s game against the Atlanta Hawks, who start a defensively flammable backcourt of Trae Young and Bodgan Bogdanovic, could be an opportunity for Curry to heat up some and start to reverse these concerning trends. Historically, Curry has a tendency to start his seasons slow and ramp up in a big way after the All-Star break, so I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I’d be lying if I didn’t have my concerns about Father Time looming over this season.
What does this next week have in store for the Warriors?
The Warriors will face their toughest competition of the early season as they finish off their 8-game homestand with games against the Hawks (4-6 record) on Monday night, the Minnesota Timberwolves (3-5 record)) on Wednesday night, and the Chicago Bulls (6-3 record) on Friday night. The Warriors will then go on the road to face the Charlotte Hornets (5-6) on Sunday night.
My prediction for this week
The Warriors should be hungry to prove that their league-best record is not a fluke, but they will go 2-2 for the week. I think the Warriors will beat the Hawks and the Timberwolves but will lose to the Bulls, who have a deep team and two excellent defenders at the guard in Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso. The relatively short turnaround between the Bulls game and Sunday afternoon’s road game against the Hornets might prove vexing and I expect the Warriors to come out slow in Charlotte and drop that game.