Golden State Warriors week-in-review: 1/31 - 2/6
The intrigue of the Curry/Thompson/Kuminga trio, Andrew Wiggins' success playing the 4, Steph Curry's new substitution patterns, Moses Moody plays NBA minutes, and more.
Who did the Warriors play?
The Warriors played a road back-to-back against the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs before coming home for a game against the Sacramento Kings.
How did they do?
The Warriors went 3-0.
How did that happen?
The Warriors went to Houston and emerged with a 122-108 win as well as a highlight reel’s worth of Steph Curry fourth-quarter heroics. After the Warriors opened the game on a 10-0 run, the Rockets, and more specifically, Christian Wood, got back into the game and managed to finish the quarter with a 25-23 lead over the Warriors. During that first quarter, Moses Moody hit his 6th three-point shot of the season as he started in place of Otto Porter Jr., and the Warriors split their center minutes between Kevon Looney and Juan Toscano-Anderson.
At the end of the second quarter, the Warriors held a 61-52 lead as they outscored the Rockets 19-12 in the minutes that Jonathan Kuminga played at the center and then survived their minutes without Steph Curry. During Kuminga’s stint at the 5, Steph Curry scored 10 points and racked up three assists, which gave the Warriors a five-point lead when he checked out. As was the case during the Warriors’ two previous games, Steph Curry sat most of the final six minutes of the second quarter, but the strong play of Andrew Wiggins, who scored 8 points and assisted on two three-point shots when Steph sat, helped the Warriors build a buffer in those minutes.
During the third quarter, the Warriors let the Rockets get within three points only two minutes into the quarter, but emerged from the period with an 87-78 lead. The Warriors and Rockets each scored 26 points in the quarter, but while a big chunk of Houston’s points came from Kevin Porter Jr. and the rest from four other players, the Warriors’ 26 points came from 8 different players, including 9 points from Steph Curry.
With a little under two minutes left in the third period, Curry subbed out as the Warriors led by 15 points, but at the start of the fourth quarter, Curry was on the floor and wouldn’t sit again until a win was assured. In an explosive burst of shotmaking, Steph Curry scored 21 points on 7/10 shooting from the field and 4/7 shooting from deep. The type of shots that Curry hit during this run were absolutely magical and on any other night, they would have been knockout punches against a lottery-bound team. But the Rockets, led by Kevin Porter Jr., tried to go shot for the shot with the Warriors.
This is commendable and impressive, but Porter Jr. also made the grave mistake of goading Steph Curry with some egregious shit-talking and amateur attempts of intimidation. You can see KPJ’s hubris and Steph Curry’s unreal shooting performance below:
An immediate consequence of Steph Curry playing 21 of the possible 24 second-half minutes against the Rockets was that he and most of the Warriors’ vets sat the next night against the San Antonio Spurs. The Warriors started a lineup of Jordan Poole/Damion Lee/Moses Moody/Juan Toscano-Anderson/Kevon Looney and only had 9 players available against the Spurs and in the first quarter, gave off the air of an exhausted team with very few available bodies. The Warriors, who only had three bigs available, trailed by six points at the end of a first-quarter where Moses Moody 12 minutes without rest and Chris Chiozza and Quinndary Weatherspoon played their first rotation minutes since December.
There was plenty of pre-game grumbling on Warriors’ Twitter about Juan Toscano-Anderson starting over Jonathan Kuminga against the Spurs, but the rookie actually played more minutes than JTA in the first half. Kuminga’s second-quarter minutes were an adventure and not necessarily a pleasant one. Kuminga had two chaotic turnovers driving to the hoop — one of them was an offensive foul that later knocked Jakob Poetl out of the game — and struggled to defend a basic dribble hand-off motion, which you can see below.
The third quarter of this back-to-back became a shootout between a Warriors team that shot 6/12 from deep in the period and a Spurs team that shot a blistering 14/21 from the field. Jordan Poole was instrumental in keeping the Warriors within striking distance of the Spurs during their shooting barrage as he hit two timely threes and shot six free throws in a quarter where he scored 14 points. Poole dragged the Warriors within 7 points of the Spurs at one point, but at the end of the period, they trailed by 15 points.
The Spurs pushed their lead as high as 17 points during the deciding period of the game, but the Warriors made an improbable comeback in a quarter where Chris Chiozza and Jonathan Kuminga played pretty effectively the entire quarter. Kuminga scored 14 points in the final 9 minutes of the game and his rim penetration gave the Warriors an unlikely source of crunch-time offense. Here’s some Kuminga film from that quarter:
When Gary Payton II was subbed out of the game at the 4:45 mark with what looked like a non-contact injury that was later revealed to be a shin contusion, it seemed as if the Warriors’ comeback might stop dead in its tracks. The Warriors trailed by five points when Damion Lee subbed in for GPII and Lee had his fingerprints all over the Warriors’ win. Lee scored 8 points in the final minutes of the game and made the heads-up pass that got Jordan Poole the game-winning three, which you can see below. Damion Lee finished the game with 21 points off of the bench, Jonathan Kuminga had 19 points, Jordan Poole scored 31 points including 19 in the second half, and Moses Moody had 20 points on 6/10 shooting from deep in the Warriors 124-120 victory.
Two nights later, the Warriors returned to San Francisco for a deeply satisfying 126-114 win against the Sacramento Kings that was nowhere as close as the score final indiciates. The Warriors opened up this game on a 13-2 run in the first four minutes of the game and finished the quarter up 34-23. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson didn’t miss a single shot in that first period and that hot shooting bled into the second quarter. In less than 9 minutes, Klay Thompson scored 20 points and hit four straight shots, each of an increasing level of difficulty, in a shooting barrage that felt very Warriors. You can see some of those moments below:
The Warriors opened the second half with a 20-point lead but were outscored 29 to 21 and committed 6 turnovers and let the Kings shoot 9 free throws in the third quarter, which set the stage for a surprisingly entertaining fourth quarter. A frontcourt of Juan Toscano-Anderson and Jonathan Kuminga opened the fourth quarter alongside Steph Curry, Damion Lee, and Klay Thompson and outscored the Kings 16-9. Jonathan Kuminga,
scored half of the Warriors’ first 16 points of the quarter and several of these buckets came in actions with Steph Curry, which you can see below:
After Steph Curry came out of the game with a nosebleed with a little less than five minutes left, garbage time began. The Kings pulled within 10 points at one point, but didn’t seriously threaten the Warriors’ lead during the final minutes of the game. Jonathan Kuminga played the entirety of the fourth quarter and before the game was over, he blessed us with one more highlight:
Who is on the injury report?
Andre Iguodala and Otto Porter Jr. are expected to play Monday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder after missing the previous 8 and three games respectively.
Nemanja Bjelica, who has missed the last four games with back spasms, will not play in the Warriors’ first two games of the week.
In a long appearance at the podium, Draymond Green expressed optimism that he’d return to the Warriors within 3-4 weeks but warned reporters that it was still possible his return could be delayed. Green did say, however, that he hasn’t experienced tightness in his lower back in quite some time and that the symptoms he’s been feeling are present in the form of tightness or weakness in his calf.
James Wiseman reportedly “got on the court” in non-contact practice last week, which was presented by local media as a significant step forward in his injury rehab.
What lineups played lots of minutes this week?
League-average ORTG is now at 110.4, which is tied with the 2018-19 season for the third-highest offensive rating of all time. That’s your point of reference for the ORTG’s below. 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 (lineups highlighted in green are positive):
Curry/Moody/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: +/-0 net rating (110.2 ORTG) in 24 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Moody/JTA/Looney: -19.4 net rating (119.4 ORTG) in 17 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Thompson/JTA/Kuminga: +47.6 net rating (181 ORTG) in 11 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Poole/Wiggins/Looney: +17.3 net rating (111.8 ORTG) in 8 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Lee/Wiggins/Kuminga: +21.4 net rating (100 ORTG) in 7 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Thompson/JTA/Kuminga: +126.9 net rating (176.9 ORTG) in 7 minutes.
Chiozza/Poole/Lee/Moody/Kuminga: +47.5 net rating (136.4 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Moody/Wiggins/Looney: +47.8 net rating (177.8 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Chiozza/GPII/Moody/Weatherspoon/Kuminga: +71.2 net rating (154.5 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Chiozza/GPII/Lee/Weatherspoon/Kuminga: +10.9 net rating (90.9 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Poole/Wiggins/JTA: +59.1 net rating (150 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Chiozza/Lee/Moody/Weatherspoon/Kuminga: +10 net rating (80 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
Chiozza/Poole/Lee/Kuminga/Looney: +12.5 net rating (162.5 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
You should immediately notice that six of the lineups in this list played all of their minutes this week in the Warriors’ comeback victory against the Spurs. Given that those combos of players are unlikely to play minutes together in meaningful games, there’s not much predictive value there. I’m much more interested in the success of the various lineups listed above with Andrew Wiggins at the 4 or Jonathan Kuminga at the 5. The offensive ratings of the Curry/Thompson/JTA/Kuminga lineups with either Jordan Poole or Damion Lee at the shooting guard are hilariously good. Otto Porter Jr. and Andre Iguodala are expected to return tonight against the Oklahoma City Thunder, so their presence may disrupt some of these rotations, but I’d still be curious to see more minutes of Jonathan Kuminga alongside Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. It’s also not hard, for example, to imagine Andre Iguodala taking the place of Juan Toscano-Anderson alongside Steph/Klay/Kuminga lineups.
The looming return of Otto Porter Jr. gives the Warriors some additional frontcourt depth, but with the way Kuminga has played recently, it’s entirely likely that OPJ’s minutes eat the playing time that Moses Moody and Damion Lee have been getting, which would push Andrew Wiggins back into substitution patterns where he plays the majority of his minutes at the 3. In the last two few, a fair amount of Wiggins’ minutes have come as the back-up 4. Wiggins has performed quite well in his minutes at the 4 and I’ve included a screenshot from Cleaning the Glass of those lineups below (positive lineups are highlighted in green):
All of this is to say that the return of OPJ and Andre Iguodala will force Steve Kerr and his coaching staff to get creative in order to keep finding minutes for Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody while also still playing some small ball with Andrew Wiggins at the 4.
Curry/Wiggins/Looney: +12.7 net rating (115.2 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Moody/Wiggins/Looney: -2.8 net rating (118.1 ORTG) in 35 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Moody: -14.4 net rating (110.6 ORTG) in 31 minutes.
Poole/Moody/Looney: -18.9 net rating (126.2 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Wiggins: +25 net rating (121.4 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Poole/Lee/JTA: -31.5 net rating (94.8 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Poole/Moody/JTA: -27.1 net rating (113.6 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Curry/Moody/Wiggins: -3.7 net rating (108.8 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Curry/Moody/Looney: -3.7 net rating (108.8 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Lee/Moody/JTA: -24.6 net rating (107 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: +12.5 net rating (114.3 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Wiggins: +12.5 net rating (114.3 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Looney: +12.5 net rating (114.3 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Curry/Moody/Thompson: +/- 0.0 net rating (114.3 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Looney: -21.2 net rating (125 ORTG) in 25 minutes.
Thompson/Moody/Wiggins: +/-0.0 net rating (110.2 ORTG) in 24 minutes.
Thompson/Moody/Looney: +/-0.0 net rating (110.2 ORTG) in 24 minutes.
Curry/JTA/Kuminga: +51 net rating (165.3 ORTG) in 24 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Kuminga: -0.8 net rating (108.5 ORTG) in 22 minutes.
Chiozza/Lee/Kuminga: +21.5 net rating (119 ORTG) in 21 minutes.
Thompson/JTA/Kuminga: +63.4 net rating (173.2 ORTG) in 21 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Kuminga: +63.4 net rating (173.2 ORTG) in 21 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/JTA: +63.4 net rating (173.2 ORTG) in 21 minutes.
I’m sure some of you have noticed by now that oftentimes in these lists of lineup combos, you run into two or three combos in a row that have the exact same amount of minutes and net rating together. That’s a direct result of Steve Kerr subbing out players in pairs in set rotations. I digress.
This is the first time in any of these posts that Moses Moody’s name figures prominently in any of the most-used lineup combos. There is not a single positive Moody combo here, although there are several variants of Moody with the starting wings that come up neutral. It’s worth remembering that most of the Moody lineup combos that played above 25 minutes this week played a lot of minutes in the Warriors’ game against the Spurs where they spent most of the night trailing.
The most interesting combos in this list are the ones with Jonathan Kuminga. There’s only one negative Kuminga lineup combo here. The most mouth-watering of these combos are variants of Curry/Thompson/JTA/Kuminga. Should Draymond Green return to the Warriors at full health, he’d be the guy you want to pair with Kuminga, but the basic idea of Kuminga screening for and cutting into the space created by two God-level shooters is salivating.
Out of curiosity, I went to the Warriors’ three-man combo numbers for the entire season to see how the Curry/Thompson/Kuminga pairing has held up. In 66 minutes together and 8 games together, that trio has a +4.7 net rating with a (120.3 ORTG) and it is the 11th most-used trio involving Jonathan Kuminga. But that lineup trio was actually quite bad until the Warriors’ previous two games. If you filter for lineup combos played prior to January 30th of this year, the Curry/Thompson/Kuminga lineup had a -19 net rating and a paltry 99 ORTG in 45 minutes and 6 together. This is all to say, their recent turnaround has been quite encouraging and hopefully, the Warriors test run that trio more.
Here are the Warriors’ two-man combos that played over 28 minutes together this past week:
Moody/Looney: -12.3 net rating (118 ORTG) in 54 minutes.
Poole/Lee: -17.1 net rating (105.7 ORTG) in 49 minutes.
Wiggins/Looney: +8.5 net rating (120.8 ORTG) in 47 minutes.
Curry/Thompson: +34 net rating (139.2 ORTG) in 47 minutes.
Lee/Kuminga: +14.7 net rating (124.5 ORTG) in 46 minutes.
Poole/Moody: -16.4 net rating (119.4 ORTG) in 46 minutes.
Poole/JTA: +1.1 net rating (120.4 ORTG) in 44 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins: +20 net rating (121.1 ORTG) in 44 minutes.
Poole/Looney: -9.5 net rating (127.6 ORTG) in 43 minutes.
Lee/JTA: -14 net rating (117 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
Lee/Moody: -12 net rating (109.6 ORTG) in 38 minutes
Poole/GPII: -2.5 net rating (116.5 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Curry/Looney: +12.7 net rating (115.2 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Moody/Wiggins: -2.8 net rating (118.1 ORTG) in 35 minutes.
Curry/Moody: -6.7 net rating (117.3 ORTG) in 35 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins: +12.7 net rating (121.4 ORTG) in 34 minutes.
Poole/Kuminga: +19.9 net rating (121.4 ORTG) in 34 minutes.
Moody/JTA: -23.5 net rating (119.2 ORTG) in 34 minutes.
GPII/Wiggins: +31.3 net rating (121.9 ORTG) in 31 minutes.
Curry/JTA: +45 net rating (164.1 ORTG) in 31 minutes.
JTA/Kuminga: +39.4 net rating (152.5 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Most of the variants of the duos that played significant minutes in the game against the Spurs on Tuesday night have negative net ratings. That does not, however, apply to Jonathan Kuminga, who was a part of the Warriors’ roaring fourth-quarter comeback in that game. Duos like Lee/Kuminga and Poole/Kuminga also had the good fortune of playing alongside the Curry/Thompson/JTA/Kuminga four-man combo that crushed opposing teams this past week and their success is reflected in the bonkers net ratings of the Curry/JTA and JTA/Kuminga net ratings for the past week.
The Curry/Kuminga duo has a +13.1 net rating for the season, but they have not managed to get to a league-average ORTG in their 227 minutes together so far. If Curry/Thompson/Kuminga continue to play significant minutes together, that’s likely to change.
Some other facts about the Curry/Kuminga duo and various other notable duos:
Curry/Kuminga is the second most-used Kuminga duo this season, second only to Lee/Kuminga, which has gotten a fair amount of garbage-time usage. But only four Curry-based duos have played fewer minutes together than Curry/Kuminga — Curry/Thompson (+17.6 net rating and 120.1 ORTG in 204 minutes), Chiozza/Curry (+14.9 net rating and 107.1 ORTG in 71 minutes), Curry/Moody: -5.4 net rating (-5.4 net rating and 105.2 ORTG in 70 minutes), and Curry/Weatherspoon (-12.5 net rating and 118.8 ORTG in 8 minutes).
The Curry/Kuminga duo’s +13.1 net rating is quite good! It’s also only the 10th best Curry-based duo by net rating this year. The three best Curry duos this season have been: Curry/GPII (+18.9 net rating and 115.3 ORTG in 447 minutes), Curry/Iguodala (+18.7 net rating and 112 ORTG in 317 minutes), Curry/Thompson.
Quinndary Weatherspoon is unlikely to play >100 minutes alongside Steph Curry this year, but Moses Moody might. If he continues to pull a negative net rating alongside Steph Curry, he will join Anderson Varejao, Kelly Oubre Jr., and James Wiseman as the only players in the Steve Kerr-era to play>100 minutes alongside Steph Curry and have a negative net rating.
The three worst Curry-based duos have to play significant minutes have been: Curry/Moody (-5.4 net rating and 105.2 ORTG in 70 minutes), Curry/Lee (+7.7 net rating and 108.8 ORTG in 399 minutes), and Curry/JTA (+10.2 net rating and 115 ORTG in 439 minutes).
There are only two Klay Thompson-based duos in the Warriors’ 50 most-used two-man combos this year: Curry/Thompson and Thompson/Wiggins (+16 net rating and 115.3 ORTG in 189 minutes. The best Thompson-based duo to receive >20 minutes has been Thompson/OPJ (+22.8 net rating and 124.5 ORTG) in 83 minutes) and the worst has been Thompson/Iguodala (-24.8 net rating and 85.4 ORTG in 22 minutes).
KLAY WATCH BABY!!!
Klay Thompson played in two games this past week and continued to show an increased comfort level and expanded floor game. After going nuclear in the first half against the Kings, Klay spent the rest of the game patiently picking apart the Kings’ soft defense and setting up his teammates. This play, which is punctuated by an acrobatic Jonathan Kuminga finish, was particularly impressive:
Since missing two games in a row, Klay Thompson is averaging 4.4 assists a game in 25.9 minutes, which would come out to 6.1 assists per 36 minutes. That rate is unlikely to continue, but per 36 minutes, Klay is far outpacing his previous career-high of 3.3 assists per 36 minutes with 4.7 assists per 36 minutes. He’s also currently on pace to surpass his previous career-high of 4.1 rebounds per 36 minutes as he’s currently pulling 5.3 boards per 36 minutes.
Klay Thompson’s stats last week:
1/31 vs. the Rockets: 14 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, and 1 turnover on 6/15 FG, 1/8 3P, and 1/1 FT’s in 26:17 minutes.
2/3 vs. the Kings: 23 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists, and 1 turnover on 8/11 FG, 7/9 3P, and 0 FT’s in 23:46 minutes.
Through 11 games this season, Klay Thompson is averaging 16.3 points, 3.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 0.5 steals, 0.5 blocks, and 1.7 turnovers a game on 43/38/100 splits in 23.5 minutes a game.
Here’s a visual representation of Klay’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:
The return of Otto Porter Jr. and Andre Iguodala will eat into the minutes of at least one of Moses Moody, Damion Lee, and Jonathan Kuminga. I suspect that Moody and Lee’s minutes are at higher risk than Kuminga, given that Kuminga has been playing significant minutes at the 5 since Nemanja Bjelica started missing games with back spasms.
I’d guess that Otto Porter Jr. will go back to starting at the power forward for the sake of keeping rotations consistent, but I do wonder at what point Steve Kerr will revert OPJ to a bench role in order to prepare for the return of Draymond Green, should he return to the Warriors in the regular season. How does that play out in terms of subs? God knows! I’d like to think that Andre Iguodala and Juan Toscano-Anderson will continue to operate as connective passers in lineups with Curry/Thompson/Kuminga + another wing. Perhaps Otto Porter Jr. and another shooter will spend more time in lineups alongside Jordan Poole without Steph Curry? And what of Nemanja Bjelica when he comes back from injury? You get the picture.
Here are some numbers on Kuminga at the 5:
Lineups with Jonathan Kuminga at the 5: +8.8 Net Rating in non-garbage time.Jonathan Kuminga's flashes this season, especially as of late, have been really dope. Playing a lot of small-ball 5 and giving the Warriors scoring juice none of their other centers can offer. https://t.co/cqVcnSDNWEJackson Frank @jackfrank_jjfHere is some additional context, provided by one of the moderators of the Light Years’ Discord server:
When neither Kuminga nor Draymond are on the court, the lineups have a +9.6 net rating over more possessions (2075 vs 306 w/ Kuminga at C). So tbf, that means lineups w/ all other centers have been doing a bit better w/o him. Still good the rookie can hang at C though.Lineups with Jonathan Kuminga at the 5: +8.8 Net Rating in non-garbage time. https://t.co/T260EMINtBJoe Viray @JoeVirayNBA
The last time that I wrote about Steph Curry’s shooting on open threes (January 24th), he was shooting 32.6% on that shot type. Since then, Curry has bumped up his percentage to 34.6% on open threes. Curry is now shooting 38.1% from the three, which is still far below his career average, but things do seem to be trending up after shooting 50% or above from deep in three of his last four games. Here’s a visual representation of Curry’s shot chart this season and take note of his uncharacteristically pedestrian averages at the rim and in the corners:
What does this next week have in store for the Warriors?
The Warriors play the Oklahoma City Thunder (17-35 record) tonight on the road before facing the Utah Jazz (32-21 record) in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night. The Warriors will then play the New York Knicks (24-29 record) and the Los Angeles Lakers (26-28 record) at home on Thursday and Saturday night.
My prediction for this week:
The Warriors will go 4-0 as Klay Thompson will not have to sit any of these games.