Golden State Warriors' week-in-review: 1/25- 1/31
Klay Thompson's week of passing and perimeter defense, new rotations for Andrew Wiggins, Gary Payton II, and Jordan Poole, and deep dives into points-per-possession stats on pick and rolls and ISO's.
Who is on the injury report?
Klay Thompson returned from an apparent hyperextension of his knee to play all three games this past week. Thompson is likely to play against the Houston Rockets tonight (Monday) and sit tomorrow’s game against the San Antonio Spurs.
Andre Iguodala, who has now missed five straight games, is expected to miss both road games this week and return to the Warriors on Thursday for a home game against the Sacramento Kings.
An expected Sunday update on the status of Draymond Green’s status did not come, but he is expected to see a specialist at some point this week.
Otto Porter Jr., as he has all season, will only play one side of the Warriors’ back-to-back games on Monday and Tuesday night. While announcing that news, Steve Kerr indicated that he intends to separate OPJ and Thompson’s rest on back-to-backs.
Nemanja Bjelica missed his first game of the season on Sunday night with back spasms. There has been no indication as to Bjelica’s status for the next few games.
For the umpteenth time, James Wiseman is reportedly “ramping up” his individual workouts, but there is still no timetable for his return to contact practices.
Who did the Warriors play?
The Warriors finished their 7-game homestand with games against the Dallas Mavericks, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Brooklyn Nets
How did they do?
The Warriors went 3-0.
How did that happen?
On Tuesday night, the Warriors faced a Mavericks team that had won 11 out of its last 13 games and blew them out 130-92. The Warriors got double-digit scoring output from 7 different players, Klay Thompson had an efficient night, and Steph Curry offset a rough night from deep with a focused mid-range game. Early in the game, Luka Doncic came out hot — he averages 28 points a game on 48/44/78 splits on the Warriors! — and scored 10 points in the first half of the quarter, but the Warriors slowed the Mavericks’ star down by siccing Gary Payton II onto him. This sequence stood out:
The Warriors opened the second quarter with a Curry/Poole/Thompson/Kuminga/Bjelica lineup that proceeded to turn the ball over and make defensive mistakes. This marked the first time that Klay Thompson played early minutes in the second quarter since returning nearly a month ago! Thompson played about 7 minutes in the period, including nearly two without Steph Curry. During Thompson’s second-quarter stint, he hit consecutive threes and got a few reps guarding Luka Doncic. You can see those possessions below:
During the second quarter, the Mavericks lost Tim Hardaway Jr. to a fifth metatarsal fracture, and without him in the lineup, their defense started to fall apart in the third quarter. The Warriors only outscored the Mavericks 34-27 in the period, but the relentlessness of the Warriors’ offense clearly wore down the Mavericks, and they fell down by as many as 20 points.
The opening minutes of the fourth quarter very quickly gave way to garbage time, but Klay Thompson provided some entertainment with flashy behind-the-back passes, and Jonathan Kuminga proceeded to pour in 17 points during the period, including two massive dunks.
Two nights later, the Warriors beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 124-115 on a night where both Steph Curry and Klay Thompson shot the lights out and combined for 52 points. The Warriors also got 19 points apiece from Jordan Poole and surprise All-Star game starter, Andrew Wiggins, who even got some lead ball-handling responsibilities in crunch time and acquitted himself well.
The Warriors struggled to create clean looks with their halfcourt offense in the opening minutes of the game, but their defense and subsequent transition offense generated threes that kept them in the game early. Karl-Anthony Towns finished the first quarter with 11 points and got a few of them at the expense of Jonathan Kuminga, who was the first “big” off of the bench for the Warriors and was tasked with guarding the Timberwolves’ star center.
At the start of the second quarter, Kuminga shifted back down to the 4 while Nemanja Bjelica manned the center spot. Bjelica gave the Warriors some of his best minutes in quite some time and racked up four assists in the first half and demonstrated some burgeoning chemistry with Klay Thompson, which helped give the Warriors a brief lead. Later in the half, KAT poured in 8 points in 65 seconds and drew a foul on Kevon Looney — his fourth of the night — in the waning minutes of the second period, which helped the Timberwolves finish the quarter with a 61-57 lead.
The Warriors grabbed control back of the game early in the third quarter and hit four threes in as many minutes. Klay Thompson hit two of those threes before being subbed out for Jordan Poole and the Warriors finished the quarter going 7/9 from deep. The Warriors outscored the Timberwolves 38-20 in the period and there was an aura of inevitably in the Warriors’ play. This sequence, in particular, felt ridiculous:
Despite finishing the fourth quarter with a 14-point lead and hitting a three on the first possession of the period to bring their lead to 17 points, the Warriors let the Timberwolves get within 6 points by the 10-minute mark of the period. When Klay Thompson subbed back into the game with about 7 minutes left, he quickly racked up two assists, and the Warriors’ crunch-time offense began to pick apart the Timberwolves and proceeded to score a bucket on over half of their offensive possessions. This sequence by Andrew Wiggins is a good example of the difficulty of defending this Warriors’ team’s closing lineup:
On Sunday night, the Warriors beat the Brooklyn Nets 110-106 in a game that should have been a marquee matchup of stars, but hours before tip-off, the Nets announced that James Harden would miss the game with a wrist injury. On top of that, Kevin Durant, is still not expected to return from injury until after the All-Star break. But still, even though the game didn’t have some of the juice from the NBA’s top-billed stars, the game did provide some drama and theatrics befitting of a nationally televised game.
The Warriors set the tone and outscored the Nets 31-20 in the first quarter and played airtight defense on the Nets’ backcourt of Kyrie Irving and Patty Mills. Andrew Wiggins, who had 14 points on 6/9 shooting in the first period, was particularly impressive. On various possessions, Wiggins executed quick and seamless switches with Klay Thompson as he toggled between Irving and Mills. This block of Kyrie Irving was particularly impressive:
With Nemanja Bjelica sitting out due to back spasms, Jonathan Kuminga operated as the Warriors’ primary back-up 5. Kuminga came in around the three-minute mark in the first quarter and checked out about 9 minutes later. The Warriors led 21-18 at the start of this stint and trailed 39-41 when Kuminga checked out, at which point Kevon Looney checked in a chunk of minutes without Steph Curry. The Warriors pushed their lead as high as 9 points before ending the half with a 54-47 lead as Andrew Wiggins hit a stepback three and Otto Porter Jr. hit consecutive shots from deep, but at no point did Steph Curry check back in, which marked the second game in a row that he didn’t close the half.
The Warriors got their lead up to 19 points by the 8-minute mark of the third quarter on a barrage of slow-moving Steph Curry/Otto Porter Jr. PNR’s, but Kyrie Irving and LaMarcus Aldridge carried the Nets late in the quarter to get the game within single digits. Irving had several highlight-reel plays and finished the quarter with 14 points and by the end of the period, the Nets trailed by only two points.
Although the Nets opened the fourth quarter with five straight points, the Warriors played the Nets mostly even despite playing significant minutes to a JTA/OPJ frontcourt and then a Damion Lee/JTA frontcourt. After consecutive turnovers from Steph Curry that allowed the Nets to tie the game back up, the Warriors called timeout. A minute later, the Warriors went to their closing lineup and Steph Curry and Klay Thompson proceeded to score the Warriors’ final 17 points of the game. The dagger shot by Klay Thompson was particularly satisfying:
What lineups played lots of minutes this week?
League-average ORTG jumped another 0.3 points this week and is now at 110.3, so that’s your point of reference for the ORTG’s of the lineups 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 (positive ones are highlighted in green):
Curry/Thompson/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: +43.9 net rating (132.6 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Poole/Wiggins/Looney: +20.2 net rating (112.5 ORTG) in 12 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Thompson/Kuminga/Bjelica: -7.4 net rating (96.2 ORTG) in 12 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: +9.2 net rating (125 ORTG) in 9 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: -60 net rating (100 ORTG) in 8 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Lee/Wiggins/Kuminga: -12.7 net rating (127.3 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Thompson/Kuminga/Bjelica: +13.7 net rating (121.4 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: +112.5 net rating (162.5 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Thompson/JTA/Kuminga: -118.1 net rating (44.4 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Lee/Wiggins/Bjelica: +83.3 net rating (116.7 ORTG) in 3 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Poole/Wiggins/Kuminga: -14.3 net rating (85.7 ORTG) in 3 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Poole/Wiggins/Bjelica: +79.2 net rating (116.7 ORTG) in 3 minutes.
The Warriors’ starting lineup was lethal in its minutes this week. 42 of this lineup’s 49 minutes on the year have come in the past week and given their success together, this lineup should play a lot more minutes together as the season progresses. That begs the question, how would that actually play out when Draymond Green is healthy? Draymond Green typically subs out around the three-minute mark of the first and third periods, so it would break years of precedent if he were to sub out earlier in the quarter to accommodate Otto Porter Jr.
Two things have been solidified in the last four games for Steve Kerr’s rotation:
Since the Warriors’ home win against the Utah Jazz, Andrew Wiggins has been gotten more minutes at the 4 when Otto Porter Jr. subs out and Jonathan Kuminga is typically Wiggins’ immediate replacement. There have even been a few instances where Wiggins gets Steph Curry’s old rotation and plays the entire first and third quarters.
Since the Warriors’ blowout win against the Mavericks, Jordan Poole and Gary Payton II have been the Warriors’ first subs.
I don’t assume that both of those patterns will stick with Draymond Green healthy. Perhaps the Warriors will opt to keep playing Wiggins significant minutes at the 4 and simply have Otto Porter Jr. play at the 5 in Kevon Looney’s place until Wiggins subs out, at which point Nemanja Bjelica or Jonathan Kuminga can push OPJ back to the 4. It might also make sense to mostly eliminate Damion Lee’s minutes when Draymond Green is healthy and distribute his minutes amongst Wiggins, GPII, and Poole.
In any event, I have rather enjoyed the Warriors’ substitution patterns recently, and particularly in the last week. It has been intriguing to see the Warriors experiment and thrive with a Curry/GPII/Poole backcourt. If you stretch out the sample size to include games from last week, the numbers look even better. You can see a screenshot of those lineups below where the positive ones are highlighted in green and garbage-time lineups highlighted in brown.
Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: +29.3 net rating (128.6 ORTG) in 65 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Looney: +30.1 net rating (127 ORTG) in 62 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/OPJ: +27.5 net rating (124.8 ORTG) in 52 minutes.
Curry/OPJ/Looney: +30.7 net rating (127.9 ORTG) in 51 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/OPJ: +46.7 net rating (134.3 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins/OPJ: +34.2 net rating (129.9 ORTG) in 44 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: +38.7 net rating (129.7 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
Thompson/OPJ/Looney: +38.7 net rating (129.7 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Wiggins: +41.2 net rating (130.1 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
Curry/Thomson/Looney: +43.9 net rating (132.6 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Wiggins: +11.6 net rating (116.2 ORTG) in 34 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/Looney: +10.8 net rating (121.2 ORTG) in 34 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins: -6.9 net rating (110.9 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/OPJ: +0.4 net rating (127.1 ORTG) in 23 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Poole: +20.3 net rating (116.3 ORTG) in 23 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Kuminga: -31.3 net rating (90.9 ORTG) in 23 minutes.
Poole/OPJ/Looney: +1.3 net rating (123.3) in 22 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Wiggins: +5.9 net rating (115.2 ORTG) in 21 minutes.
Note that the most-played combo does not include Steph Curry! Wiggins/OPJ/Looney played 14 minutes in five-man lineups without Steph Curry his past week, both of which came up positive. It’s a huge win for the Warriors if that combo can survive with Jordan Poole handling the ball for a few minutes at a time. Surprisingly, Curry/Poole/Wiggins came up negative, but some of those minutes came alongside Jonathan Kuminga, whose presence also tanked the Curry/Thompson combo in their minutes together this past week.
Here are the Warriors’ two-man combos that played over 25 minutes together this past week:
Wiggins/Looney: +29 net rating (127.7 ORTG) in 76 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins: +24.2 net rating (123.5 ORTG) in 71 minutes.
Curry/Thompson: +20.3 net rating (119.6 ORTG) in 68 minutes.
Wiggins/OPJ: +25.7 net rating (127.9 ORTG) in 67 minutes.
OPJ/Looney: +29.3 net rating (128.6 ORTG) in 65 minutes.
Curry/Looney: +30.1 net rating (127 ORTG) in 62 minutes.
Curry/OPJ: +27.7 net rating (126.1 ORTG) in 56 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins: +1.9 net rating (118.9 ORTG) in 54 minutes.
Thompson/OPJ: +35.9 net rating (133 ORTG) 49 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins: +28.2 net rating (124.3 ORTG) in 47 minutes.
Poole/GPII: +20.2 net rating (116.7 ORTG) in 43 minutes.
Thompson/Looney: +38.7 net rating (129.7 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
Curry/Poole: +/- 0.0 net rating (115.6 ORTG) in 42 minutes.
GPII/Wiggins: +9.3 net rating (113.5 ORTG) in 36 minutes.
Poole/Looney: +10.8 net rating (121.2 ORTG) in 34 minutes.
Poole/Lee: +13.5 net rating (116.7 ORTG) in 30 minutes.
Poole/OPJ: -9 net rating (122 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Curry/Kuminga: -20.8 net rating (92.6 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Lee/Kuminga: -8.1 net rating (98.4 ORTG) in 28 minutes.
Thompson/Kuminga: -30.2 net rating (95.2 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Again, Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney rank highest on this list in terms of minutes, which is the first time in recent memory that a two-man combo has usurped Curry/Wiggins as the Warriors’ most-used duo. Variants of the starters crushed in their minutes this past week, but Jordan Poole’s minutes alongside Andrew Wiggins were barely positive and his minutes with Steph Curry were exactly neutral. You’ll note also at the bottom of this list that Jonathan Kuminga's duos were all negative and really struggled to score this past week.
KLAY WATCH BABY!!!
Klay Thompson played his best week of basketball since returning on January 9th and played in all three games this week, despite missing a game last week with a minor hyperextension of his knee.
In the Warriors’ blowout victory against the Mavericks, Klay Thompson racked up 6 flashy assists and spent a few possessions comfortably guarding Luka Doncic on the perimeter en route to an easy 15-point night on 6/12 shooting. Here are a few of his better passes from that game:
Thompson followed up his solid night showing against the Mavericks for an explosive 20+ point night against the Timberwolves. Klay Thompson played 7 straight minutes to close the fourth quarter and his presence opened up the court for other Warriors to make simple reads for clean shots in crunch time.
But I think that Klay’s finest moments this week came during the Warriors’ game against the Nets. Although Klay had a rough shooting night by his standards, he not only hit the dagger three, he looked shockingly comfortable defending Kyrie Irving and Patty Mills on the perimeter amidst constant switches and DHO’s. He also continued to flash patient playmaking juice. This defensive sequence was extremely encouraging:
I also liked this pass from Thompson:
Klay Thompson’s stats last week:
1/25 vs. the Mavericks: 15 points, 2 rebounds, 6 assists, and 1 turnover on 6/12 FG, 3/5 3P, and 0 FT’s in 25:38 minutes.
1/27 vs. the Timberwolves: 23 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block, and 4 turnovers on 9/16 FG, 5/9 3P, and 0/0 FT in 26:59 minutes.
1/29 vs. the Nets: 16 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, and 0 turnovers on 5/14 FG, 2/8 3P, and 4/4 FT’s in 26:47 minutes.
Through 9 games this season, Klay Thompson is averaging 15.8 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 0.6 steals, 0.4 blocks, and 1.8 turnovers a game on 41/35/100 splits in 21.3 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:
After Steph Curry’s 29-point night on Thursday where he shot 6/10 from deep, The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson published an article about an apparent mechanical flaw in Curry’s shot that the Warriors’ coaching staff spotted and corrected. And so it was declared that the COVID-19 pandemic was over and that war in Iraq was victorious! I jest, I hope, because Curry proceeded to shoot 5/18 from the field and 3/10 from deep two nights later against the Brooklyn Nets. As has been the case during Curry’s increasingly bizarre and unsettling shooting slump, he missed open threes on side-to-side misses and short misses, and he botched easy layups in the paint. All of this is to say, I do not like it when the Warriors take victory laps too early!!!
Speaking of victory laps, here’s one from December 20th written by NBCS Bay Area’s Grant Liffman on the subject of Gary Payton II’s improved three-point shot. On the date of publication, GPII was shooting 39.5% from deep, albeit with a 61.3% free-throw percentage. Since the publication of that article Payton is shooting from deep and 45.5 from the free-throw line. Payton has also only made one out of his last 11 attempts from deep since returning from back spasms. Despite that, Payton still has the fourth-highest non-garbage time net rating of any Warrior player. How his minutes will be affected by a fully healthy Warriors’ rotation remains to be seen, but he is still unquestionably one of the Warriors’ most important players.
Now that Klay Thompson is back, I’ve temporarily retired the recurring segment, POOLE WATCH BABY!!!, but I’d like to give Jordan Poole some attention for his recent performances. Since the Warriors’ horrendous loss to the Pacers at home, Poole is averaging 18.6 points, 3.8 assists, 2.8 rebounds, 1.4 stocks, and 1.8 turnovers on 49/45/100 splits in 28.8 minutes a game. Poole started in the first of those two games and it seems that getting some minutes in his old rotation helped ease him back into a bench role. Poole runs hot and cold — he averaged 18.5 points a game on 49/39/90 splits in March and followed that up with 10.3 points a game the next month on 35/32/83 splits — so those numbers will cool off at some point, but it’s been nice to see him catch fire. Poole has demonstrated better patience as a playmaker recently and he’s doing an impressive job of shifting between on and off-ball responsibilities depending on who he shares the court with. To that point, I wanted to see what Jordan Poole-led lineups have looked like without Steph Curry on the court. Here’s a screenshot from Cleaning the Glass (the positive lineups are highlighted in green):
Some other Poole numbers: his godly restricted area percentages are down to merely excellent as he’s shooting 66.9% in that range. This is still quite good and we should be encouraged by the fact that 44.4% of those makes are unassisted, which is a huge jump from that 31.7% share last season. Poole is also shooting 43.6% on midrange jumpers this year and 42.8% on floaters.
While Jordan Poole is very obviously going to factor into the Warriors’ playoff rotation, Jonathan Kuminga might not and his minutes have fluctuated since Steve Kerr (prematurely) declared that the rookie would start at the power forward in place of Draymond Green for the indefinite future. Below is a screenshot of the non-garbage time lineups that Kuminga has played the most minutes in (lineups highlighted in green are positive), but take note of the negative net rating of the Curry/Thompson/Kuminga lineups.
Some other assorted numbers on Jonathan Kuminga: he’s shooting 71.1% in the restricted area and he’s third on the team in FG% on drives with 59%, but only Kevon Looney passes the ball less frequently on drives. Kuminga’s rim pressure is a welcome change of pace for a Warriors team short on explosive athletes, but his in-between game still needs lots of work; Kuminga is 10/37 on the season in shots in the non-paint restricted area and has only made one out of his 7 attempts from the midrange this season.
Jonathan Kuminga has apparently yet to cross the 10 possession threshold as the pick-and-roll man to qualify for the NBA’s tracking numbers, but we now have enough of a sample size to see the points-per-possession numbers for several Warriors in this playtype. Otto Porter Jr. leads the team in PPP as the roll man with 1.21, followed Nemanja Bjelica at 1.08, and Kevon Looney at 1.05. Only Porter is above the 50th percentile in PPP as the roll man, but unsurprisingly, not a single Warrior even had 50 possessions as the roll man. Bjelica has 49 possessions this year as the roll man — that would rank just 64th in the entire league.
I was curious about PPP stats for the Warriors’ PNR ball handlers, so let’s take a look here. Steph Curry has 305 possessions as the PNR ball handler, followed by Jordan Poole with 160, and Andrew Wiggins with 137. No other Warrior has run more than 20 PNR’s as the ball handler, although Klay Thompson and Jonathan Kuminga have hilariously good PPP’s of 1.70 and 1.15 on a minuscule sample size of 10 and 13 possessions respectively. Although Steph Curry has handled the ball nearly twice as many pick and rolls as any other Warrior player, he only has a 0.95 PPP (78th percentile) on those types of possessions. Jordan Poole actually ranks higher with 1.03 PPP (89th percentile.) Curry’s 305 possessions as the PNR ball handler is 19th most in the league and of players with more than 250 of those possessions, Curry ranks 7th in PPP. That’s solid, but nowhere near Curry’s league-leading 1.13 PPP as the PNR ball-handler last season.
Let’s take a look at the Warriors’ isolation numbers, which I’ve linked to here. Steph Curry has the highest PPP and share of possessions with 1.15 PPP on 80 possessions. This is actually better than how he fared last season when he had 1.13 PPP on 135 possessions. Last season, Andrew Wiggins ranked in the 79th percentile with 1.04 PPP in ISO situations, but he’s back to 0.88 PPP on 68 possessions, which ranks in the 49th percentile. Jordan Poole’s ISO numbers are rough. He’s in the 29th percentile with only 0.78 PPP on 60 possessions. After Curry, Wiggins, and Poole, no other player has more than 18 possessions in isolation. But in small sample sizes of 18 and 10 possessions respectively, Jonathan Kuminga and Klay Thompson have PPP’s of 1.00 and 1.40.
What does this next week have in store for the Warriors?
The Warriors play the Houston Rockets on the road tonight before going to San Antonio for a back-to-back and will return to the Bay Area for a Thursday night game against the Sacramento Kings.
My prediction for this week
The Warriors will go 2-1 and lose to the Spurs as Klay Thompson sits.