Steve Kerr chases a win, rides his vets, and the Warriors win on the road 126-110 against the Toronto Raptors
Draymond Green and Jordan Poole have big scoring nights, Steve Kerr has a short leash with his young players, and much more.
Just two nights after Draymond Green missed a road game against the Philadelphia 76ers, Steve Kerr got what he wanted out of buying some rest for his veteran as the Warriors won a winnable game on the road against the Toronto Raptors! The Warriors are now 3-14 on the road and at least have the dignity of being tied with four other teams for the fewest amount of road wins in the NBA while still having the most road losses in the league. Joy.
The Warriors’ 126-110 victory was marked by Steve Kerr’s adult-heavy rotations. James Wiseman did not play until garbage time, Jonathan Kuminga did not play in the second half after eh first-half minutes, Moses Moody only played 8 minutes before the onset of garbage time, and Ty Jerome played the most minutes of any Warriors’ bench player.. Donte DiVincenzo, Draymond Green, Jordan Poole, and Klay Thompson all played over 30 minutes in tonight’s game, including a surprising amount of fourth-quarter minutes with the Warriors leading by 20 or so points for much of the final period.
The two biggest stories of the night were the play of Draymond Green and Jordan Poole.
The Warriors got off to a hot start in the first quarter and only missed two shots before the first stoppage of the game at the 5:59 mark of the period and it was Green who kicked off the scoring with three consecutive threes and the first three shot attempts by the Warriors. Draymond finished the game with 17 points, 15 shot attempts including 6 shots from deep, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists. While Green’s offense really only popped in the first quarter, it clearly gave the Warriors some much-needed energy to start the game and that energy sustained itself throughout the night.
Jordan Poole finished the game with a career-high 43 points on just 23 shots and save for a scoring burst in the second quarter, had a fairly quiet and stable path to his 43 points. Poole shot 5/11 from three — it’s not like he went on a shooting tear en route to his big night — and shot 11 free throws in a rare game where the Warriors took more free throws than their opponents. Poole looked in control and was refreshingly assertive with the ball in his hands tonight. If there is to be any silver lining in Steph Curry’s absence, it will hopefully come in the form of more nights like these for Jordan Poole that create momentum that he carries into games that the Warriors play at full health.
Some other thoughts and observations:
Klay Thompson’s rough shooting two nights ago against the Philadelphia 76ers wasn’t unbearably bad until he made two shots in the fourth quarter and then tried to win the game for the Warriors. Tonight, Klay was just 3/9 from three, but he had 17 points, 7 boards, 4 assists, and shot 3/5 on two-point field goals. For the most part, Klay took good shots tonight — save for one ridiculous fading mid-range jumper he took early in the shot clock from damn near underneath the basket as he cut baseline — and didn’t do anything egregiously dumb.
Donte DiVincenzo, just one game removed from his own first-quarter scoring outburst, finished the game with just 5 points in 32 minutes, but his defense and playmaking were typically solid.
JaMychal Green had a nasty stretch of minutes in the third quarter where he missed easy shots and made some questionable defensive rotations, but turned things around late in that period with some made shots. Green tied his season-high of 15 points and two of his three shots from deep, which brought his three-pointing percentage on the season to... 26.5%, and tonight marked just the third time all season that Green made multiple threes in a game.
Ty Jerome played the most minutes of any Warriors’ bench player tonight and I was ok with that. Jerome hit a bail-out three, got to the line twice when the Warriors needed something to happen, dished out 4 assists, and held his own switching on defense.
The Warriors’ two lottery picks from the 2021 draft, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody, were mostly invisible tonight. Kuminga only registered four box-score stats: 2 points, a steal, a foul, and an assist. Moody, on the other hand, played double the minutes of Kuminga but did not take a single shot and only tallied a steal, a turnover, and two personal fouls. Moody seemed reluctant to shoot in his minutes while Kuminga was a little too eager to do so. In his first-quarter minutes, Kuminga took a pull-up midrange jumper early in the shot clock and later in the second quarter, took another unnecessary midrange jumper from the middle of the key.
Rotation watch:
1st Q:
12:00 — Poole/DiVincenzo/Thompson/D. Green/Looney: 0-0, tie game.
4:27 —Jerome/DiVincenzo/Thompson/D. Green/J. Green: 28-20, Warriors lead.
3:46 — Jerome/DiVincenzo/Thompson/Kuminga/J. Green: 30-20, Warriors, lead.
3:32 — Jerome/Moody/Thompson/Kuminga/J. Green: 30-21, Warriors lead.
The Warriors’ first three shots of the game were all taken by Draymond Green. This would be unusual in any game, but what made it more incredible — in the literal sense of the word — was that all three of those shots came from deep and Draymond made every one of them. The third one of those shots was particularly amusing — it was as close to a Draymond Green heat-check as you’ll ever see and it danced around the rim before finally going down. You can see all 11 of Draymond’s first-quarter points below:
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