The Warriors' week in review: 5/3 - 5/9
Looking at how played, Damion Lee's health, the Jordan Bell reunion, and the seeding implications of the final four games of the year.
Who did the Warriors play?
The New Orleans Pelicans on a road back-to-back and the Oklahoma City Thunder for two home games.
How did they do?
3-1.
What happened?
The Warriors won their first game. 123-108, against the Pelicans by taking a big lead at the end of the first quarter and doing just enough to hold on for the rest of the game. Steph Curry did Steph things (41 points on 14-26 shooting, 8-18 from three), the Warriors got 51 points combined from Andrew Wiggins/Juan Toscano Anderson/Jordan Poole, and a triple double from Draymond Green. Even though Zion Williamson scored 32 points on 50% shooting, Draymond did solid defensive work and made Zion work for his buckets (Anthony Slater highlighted one such example here). But in the end, nothing Zion did really mattered because the Pelicans simply couldn’t hit threes and went 5-25 on the night with Lonzo Ball going a disgusting 1-9 from distance.
The next night, Ball more than made up for his poor performance and dropped 33 points, including 12 points and the dagger shot in the fourth quarter. The Warriors took a four point lead into the fourth quarter before running out of gas and tricking a winnable game. Through three quarters, Curry had 35 points and looked to be on pace for a 40 or 50 point game, but Steph went cold in his final 10 minutes or so of play. The culprit? The arena lights turning off as he pulled up from deep. No, seriously. After the lights went out, Steph went 1-12 and missed all six of his three point attempts and the Pelicans won 108-103.
On Thursday night, the Warriors the six game homestand that will close out the season with a victory against the tanking Thunder. The game was disturbingly even in the first half, in large part because of the shot making of Thunder guard, Ty Jerome (16 points on 6-9 shooting), but Steph Curry effectively put the game away with a 17 point third quarter and only made a brief cameo in the fourth quarter to put the kibosh on the a 118-97 victory.
Saturday night’s game against the Thunder was even less of a contest. The Warriors took a 25 point lead at the end of the first half and Steph Curry had a mere 27 points, ensuring he’d stay ahead of Bradley Beal for the scoring title. For good measure, Steph dropped another 22 in the third quarter and sat out the fourth quarter, at which point I turned off my TV, knowing the game was over and I had 0 interest in watching Alen Smailagic do... whatever it is he does and so the Warriors won 136-97.
What lineups played lots of minutes this week?
Since we have only four games of data for this week, I’m just going to look at five man lineups that played more than 5 minutes (excluding some obvious garbage time lineups with Mannion and company) and then five most used three man and two man lineups (positive lineups bolded):
Curry/Bazemore/Wiggins/Green/Looney: +25.4 net (120.6 ORTG) in 58 minutes.
Poole/Mulder/Wiggins/JTA/Looney: -14.7 net (75 ORTG) in 19 minutes.
Curry/Mulder/Wiggins/JTA/Green: +45.5 net (120.5 ORTG) in 17 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Mulder/JTA/Green: +34.6 net (134.6 ORTG) in 11 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Bazemore/JTA/Green: -15 net (125 ORTG) in 9 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/JTA/Green: +3.4 net (121.1 ORTG) in 8 minutes.
Curry/Bazemore/Wiggins/JTA/Green: -44.3 net (85.7 ORTG) in 8 minutes.
Curry/Mulder/Bazemore/JTA/Green: -6.7 net (100 ORTG) in 8 minutes.
Poole/Bazemore/Wiggins/JTA/Looney: +25.8 net (109.1 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
In this small sample size that includes two games against the tanking Thunder, there’s probably not much predictive value here, but the starting lineup still looks great, Curry/Poole lineups are almost all positive, and it’s nice to see at least one Poole led bunch unit come up positive again.
Here are last week’s six (tie for 65 minutes minutes so I’m listing both) most used three man lineups (positive lineups bolded):
Curry/Wiggins/Green: +21.8 net (119.8 ORTG) in 92 minutes.
Curry/Bazemore/Green: +7.9 net (114.6 ORTG) in 82 minutes.
Bazemore/Wiggins/Green: +16.9 net (114.5 ORTG) in 76 minutes.
Bazemore/Wiggins/Looney: +27 net (117.6 ORTG) in 68 minutes.
Wiggins/Green/Looney: +29.2 net (120.1 ORTG) in 65 minutes.
Curry/Bazemore/Wiggins: 14.3 net (115.6 ORTG) in 65 minutes.
Not much to say here other than to note that our starting lineup is good.
Here are last week’s five most used two-man combos (positive lineups bolded):
Curry/Green: +19.1 net (121.7 ORTG) in 120 minutes.
Wiggins/Green: +24.2 net (120.3 ORTG) in 105 minutes.
Bazemore/Green: +12.6 net (113.6 ORTG) in 96 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins: +19.5 net (118.1 ORTG) in 96 minutes.
Wiggins/Looney: +18.3 net (109.4 ORTG) in 94 minutes.
The only thing that really stands out to me here is that the Wiggins/Looney combo’s ORTG is below league average (112.3 as of time of writing), but still rocking a high net rating. This is probably a result of good defense as well as a fair amount of Wiggins/Looney minutes coming in bench lineups without Steph.
POOLE WATCH BABY!!
Jordan Poole had himself an OK week and averaged 12.5 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists on 43/29/73 splits. Poole’s three point shooting has been bad for about a month now (31% since the beginning of April as opposed to 39% in the month of March), but the 2 point shooting is still perfectly fine and he went 9-17 from two point land this last week. By my eyes, I think Poole is a little tired. I’ve noticed a few instances where his forrays to the hoop end with him getting blocked by the backboard or not getting enough hang time to get off a clean look and of course, his three point misses are getting increasingly ugly. I’m still excited about Poole and very curious to see how he performs in a playoff environment, but I do wish the Warriors a veteran guard who could take some playmaking responsibilities off of his plate.
Poole’s numbers on the season (rounded up):
11 points on 42/34/87 splits (56% TS) with 2 assists, 1.7 rebounds, 1 turnover, and 0.7 stocks.
67.9% restricted area FG on 84 attempts, 37.8% mid range on 37 attempts, 55% corner 3P on 27 attempts, 31% above the break 3P on 216 attempts (Poole took 26 attempts above the break and only one in the corner this week!), 52.5% floaters FG on 40 attempts (shooting splits here).
-0.1 OBPM, -1.5 DBPM, -1.6 BPM (Basketball Reference) / 2.78 ORPM, -1.56 DRPM, +1.22 RPM (ESPN) / +0.5 offensive EPM, -1.1 defensive EPM, -0.6 EPM (Dunks & Threes)
Maybe Kelly Oubre Jr. will play again? / Damion Lee’s COVID-19 recovery / roster transactions
On Thursday, the Warriors announced that Kelly Oubre Jr. will not be getting surgery for his injured wrist and will be re-evaluated in a week or two. This opens up the possibility, one that I feel ambivalent about, that Oubre plays playoff minutes for the Warriors. In a vacuum, I think this iteration of the Warriors — one with a lot of young players, low IQ vets, and a dearth of credible shooters — is probably a bit better without Oubre.
But in the real world, the Warriors are running on fumes. They’ve gone 10-5 since James Wiseman got hurt, but they’ve spent much of the last 15 games running an 8-man rotation and asking a lot of Draymond Green and Juan Toscano Anderson as they moonlight at the center spot. The timeline of Eric Paschall’s possible return is murky, but he was also getting DNP’s before he got hurt. Alen Smailagic and Nico Mannion are garbage time players that Steve Kerr does not trust, rightfully so, enough to give meaningful minutes to.
The Warriors need NBA bodies, which is why it hurts so much to hear that Damion Lee is likely to miss the rest of the season with complications from a positive COVID-19 diagnosis.
Lee fought hard to make it to the NBA. He’s recovered from two ACL tears, got yanked around by the Warriors for two years on two-way deals, when he arguably should have been on their playoff roster in 2019, and every mistake he makes sparks a brief Twitter rant from an observer who believes (wrongly) that Lee is only in the NBA because he’s Steph Curry’s brother-in-law. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Lee is a legitimate NBA shooter and scorer. He rarely takes risky shots, but if he’s taking a shot, there’s a good chance it’s going in, no matter where he takes it from. Lee shot it at 77.3% from 0-3 feet, 68% from 3-10 feet, 52% from 10-16 feet, and 50% from 16 feet out to the three point line. His 63% TS is second highest on the team after Steph Curry and Juan Toscano Anderson (67.8% for JTA???). Good things happen when he’s on the court and Lee deserved a chance to play important minutes in the playoffs for the Warriors.
Lee is one of 6,000 or so people who tested positive for COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated. If the news of Lee’s infection after vaccination is giving you pause about the efficacy of vaccines, just remember that Lee is part of the .000075%. That’s way less statistically significant than, say, a 1% fatality rate for an infectious and airborne viral infection, but I digress.
Forget about the implications of Lee’s infection for this year, let’s just all hope that Damion Lee can achieve a full recovery and get his life back on track. In a press conference, Lee listed some of his symptoms including but not limited to: headaches, chills, sneezing, congestion, soreness, and body aches. “It felt like I was hit by a car. Like hit by two cars at once every step I took. It hurt, it was pain, soreness. It felt like there was a weight on my chest for a couple of days, like it was just hard to breathe,” Lee said.
Buried in that article is a mention that Lee is going to get x-rays on his chest, which would seem to imply the possibility that Lee has some lung scarring as a result of his COVID-19 complications. It’s spooky stuff and I want nothing more than for Lee to get back to normal and not suffer any long-term complications as a result of covid.
To bring it back to the basketball side of things, Lee’s absence, which is expected to be indefinite, really messes with an already depleted wing rotation. Jordan Poole has been in an extended shooting slump, Kent Bazemore makes an exceedingly dumb play for every two good ones he makes, Andrew Wiggins is consistent in all things except for his ability to shoot the ball, and Mychal Mulder has been fine, I guess, but I don’t think any Warriors fan feels good about 10-15 minutes of Mychal Mulder in the playoffs.
The Warriors really could use another competent NBA caliber wing, but so far there’s been little news on that front, save for a Wes Goldberg tweet predicting that the Warriors will fill their 15th roster spot after they convert Juan Toscano Anderson to a guaranteed deal (congratulations Juan!!!). Instead, the Warriors plan to make a sensible, albeit surprising move and reunite with Jordan Bell, who will take JTA’s two-way contract slot.
Although I’ve been on the Omari Spellman reunion train for a while now because I like shooting 5’s, I understand why Bell was appealing to the Warriors. The coaching staff clearly feels that their system is not one that’s easy to just plug and play, and as such I imagine a significant amount of the appeal of Bell is not just his defensive prowess, but his familiarity with the Warriors’ motion offense. Bell played well enough in his rookie season to stake a brief claim to the starting center spot, which prompted some speculation that he could be the Warriors’ long term center. But an ankle injury derailed his rookie year and although Bell was very useful defensively against the Rockets in the 2018 Western Conference Finals, things mostly went downhill for Bell as a Warrior.
I remember rookie Bell being a very aggressive finisher at the rim, which was really exciting because the only other person capable of being a threatening lob target on those Warriors was Javale McGee, who Steve Kerr did not trust to play meaningful minutes. Bell showed promise as a passer on the short roll and on dribble hand off sets too! But in his second year, Bell got into hot water with the Warriors’ coaching staff and I distinctly remember him becoming unusually passive as a finisher and overpassing (perhaps looking off a good shot for a great one?), to the point that he provided very little on offense.
Since his Warriors’ stint, Bell has bounced around the league with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Memphis Grizzlies, and the Washington Wizards. He even signed a deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but didn’t play a single game for them. Bell played well in the G-League Bubble (17.6 points, 9.1 boards, 3.3 assists, and 3.4 stocks on 81/33/80 splits), and the Washington Wizards were apparently interested in bringing Bell back on a second ten-day contract, but he claims to want to make things right with the Warriors and try and revive his career where it started.
The intrigue of Bell is obvious — he’s a twitchy, quick, and explosive athlete who can block shots, switch capably on the perimeter, finish on the PNR, and make somewhat advanced reads as a passer. The downsides are that he’s a skinny 6’9, he bites on a lot of pump fakes, has had some maturity issues, and seemed to get in his own head about what to do on offense the more time he spent as a Warriors (I think that last point is a coaching staff issue, but I digress).
I am curious to see how Bell does for the Warriors and how much he plays. I have my concerns about throwing another non-shooting C into the mix, but he’s said to have worked on extending his range, and the one thing I always liked about Bell was that he LOVED to slip DHO’s sets with shooters and barge into the lane uncontested for a thunderous dunk. It never hurts to be able to find 4-6 easy points a game from a bit player like Bell and more importantly, his presence could help Draymond, Looney, and JTA get some much needed rest.
What does this next week have in store for the Warriors?
The Warriors play the Utah Jazz tonight, who are expected to be without Mike Conley Jr. and Donovan Mitchell, the Phoenix Suns tomorrow night, the likely Zion-less Pelicans on Friday night, and they play their last game of the year on Sunday against the Memphis Grizzlies.
What will I be watching for this week?
PLAYOFF STANDINGS BABY!!! This week will be stressful and chaotic. The Warriors are half a game ahead of the Grizzlies in the standings right now and just barely have a hold on the eighth seed. The Grizzlies play five games this week against the Pelicans, Mavericks, Kings (twice) and then the Warriors, all of which are winnable. It’s almost certain that one of the Warriors or Grizzlies end up in the eighth seed, as the 10th seeded Spurs have a difficult slate of games to close out the season.
But where it gets interesting is the 7th seed. The Lakers and Blazers are in a fight for the sixth seed to avoid the play-in tournament. A healthy Lakers team wouldn’t be in this position, but Anthony Davis and LeBron James missing games has the Lakers in a vulnerable position and now the math is trending towards them ending up in the play-in tournament. As such, it is a very real possibility that Steph Curry and LeBron James face each other in the play-in tournament as the 7th and 8th seeds, which frankly, I’m not really looking forward to — just imagine the toxicity of your Twitter feed when fans try to litigate Steph and LeBron’s entire careers through the lens of a single playoff game. Woof.
The playoff standings are the most important thing here, but I’m also going to play close attention to how Steve Kerr uses Jordan Bell, what clues we might gleam about Kerr’s playoff rotation, and what the Warriors do with the 15th roster spot. Lord knows they could use some reinforcements.
My prediction for the week:
3-1. I’d feel somewhat good about the Warriors against the Jazz at full strength, provided that Steve Kerr makes an effort to involve Rudy Gobert in PNR’s all game, but without Conley Jr. and Mitchell, the Jazz probably don’t have the shot making to keep up with the Warriors. Jordan Clarkson is a fun player who was garnering some 6MOY buzz, but he’s been inefficient for a while now after a hot start and he’s really the only other Jazz player with any juice off the dribble. The Phoenix Suns have embarrassed the Warriors twice this season and seeing as they’re fighting for the top seed, I see no reason they don’t smack the Warriors down again. The Warriors should beat the Pelicans without Zion, which should lead to a very intense season finale against the Grizzlies to determine who gets the 8th seed.
The Warriors split the season series against the Grizzlies, even without Steph Curry. That’s encouraging, but the Grizzlies 7 foot unicorn, Jaren Jackson Jr., is back in the lineup now and I will never put it past this iteration of the Warriors to trick the biggest game of the season. I think the Warriors probably still win against the Grizzlies if only because I don’t think there’s any way Draymond Green and Steph Curry let them lose, but man, I really wish we didn’t have to go through the stress of this play-in tournament.