Warriors week-in-review: 1/10 - 1/16
The Warriors' lineups since Klay Thompson's return, increased minutes for Jonathan Kuminga, and the dog days of the season.
What’s the injury report?
Klay Thompson is still on a minutes limit, but he did finally get cleared to play 25 minutes for the first time on Sunday night. Thompson is still, however, not cleared to play back-to-backs.
James Wiseman is not expected to return until after the All-Star break, per The Athletic’s Anthony Slater, who reported last week that Wiseman had a second surgery in December to clear out some loose tissue on his surgically repaired knee.
Gary Payton II missed the last two games of the Warriors’ road trip with back soreness. His return date is unknown.
Steph Curry fell hard on his right hand on Friday night and was clearly shaken up, but finished the game. He did, however, fly back home and miss the final game of the road trip. Curry’s hand injury does not seem serious and Stev Kerr told reporters that he’s “hopeful” that his star guard can play Tuesday night.
Draymond Green has not played since before Klay Thompson came back from his injury rehab. Green, who tweaked something in his calf pre-game on the night of Thompson’s return, is expected to miss at least the next two weeks until he’s re-evaluated. The reason for Green’s extended absence is potentially quite concerning: it seems that this calf injury is connected to an issue with a disc in his lower back.
Who did the Warriors play?
The Warriors went on a grueling road trip beginning a Tuesday night game against Memphis Grizzlies, a back-to-back against the Milwaukee Bucks and Chicago Bulls, and a Sunday night matchup against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
How did they do?
The Warriors went 1-3.
How did that happen?
The Warriors opened their road trip with a close 108-116 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, who were without Dillon Brooks and Steven Adams. The absence of Adams actually worked to the Grizzlies’ advantage as their young power forward, Jaren Jackson Jr., slid up to the 5, which gave the Warriors fits in the waning minutes of the game. The Warriors, who were without Draymond Green — he also would miss the rest of this week — started Juan Toscano-Anderson in his absence. JTA played 7 minutes to start the game and then did not play again as Steve Kerr opted to beef up the Warriors’ point-of-attack defense with Gary Payton II in an attempt to slow down Grizzlies’ star guard, Ja Morant, who scored 15 points in the opening period.
The Grizzlies railed four threes in the first five minutes of the second quarter and got their lead as high as 18 points halfway through the period, but the Warriors held their own in a stint where rookie guard, Moses Moody, played alongside Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. After Moody subbed out, the Warriors went on a 14-4 run to end the quarter and cut the Grizzlies’ lead to 8 points to end the half when Klay Thompson railed a three in the left corner after the Warriors were gifted the ball after a bad out-of-bounds call.
The Warriors started the third quarter down 8 points and made a crucial readjustment: Gary Payton II started in place of Juan Toscano-Anderson as the Warriors went small. The Warriors’ first offensive play of the period felt like a good omen:
Five minutes through the quarter, the Warriors were up 8 points, but this young Grizzlies’ team took the Warriors’ best shot in stride and dulled their momentum with aggressive penetration and an aerial assault in transition. The Warriors managed to finish the quarter up three points, but by the 10:11 mark of the fourth quarter, the Grizzlies took a 94-92 lead and did not trail again. As has been the case in several Warriors’ losses this year, their late-game offense was lacking and the Grizzlies’ defense forced them into uncomfortable shots, several of which came late in the clock.
The Warriors’ offense perked up when Klay Thompson re-entered the game with about four and a half minutes left — his first time playing closing minutes! — but the clutch shooting of Tyus Jones, who hit back-to-back threes gave the Grizzlies a 9-point buffer with 3:34 left in the game. Klay Thompson had a nice stretch in the final minutes of the game that brought the Warriors within three points of the Grizzlies as he got to the line on a pump-fake and drive, hit a mid-range jumper in isolation, and hit Gary Payton II with an assist on a baseline dunk, but Ja Morant closed the Warriors out with consecutive drives against Payton II and Andrew Wiggins to put the game out of reach.
The Warriors followed up their frustrating loss to the Grizzlies with their worst game of the season in a humiliating 118-99 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. That score does not accurately reflect just how ugly Thursday night’s game was — if you had the misfortune of watching this game and, god forbid, being excited for it beforehand, you were probably tempted to turn the TV off halfway through the second quarter when the Bucks built their lead to 30 points on a demoralizing step-back jumper by Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Giannis’ bullying of the Warriors began early as he drew quick fouls in 62 seconds on Kevon Looney, who then subbed out for Andre Iguodala. The Bucks shot 5/12 in the first quarter and never really relented in their obliteration of the Warriors; when Giannis sat for the first time, Khris Middleton came back in and proceeded to score or assist on 9 points in the final three minutes of the quarter to put the Bucks up by 16 at the end of the period.
That first quarter was merely a premonition of what was to come as the Bucks opened the second quarter with a 21-4 run that all but put an end to the game. At no point in the second quarter were the Warriors able to put up any resistance to the Bucks, who got 10 points each from Bobby Portis Jr. and Grayson Allen and 12 points from Giannis Antetokounmpo en route to a quarter where the Warriors were outscored 40-17 by their opponent, who somehow only made five shots from deep in the period. Bobby Portis Jr., in particular, was dominant and hit a buzzer-beating three to end the half.
Things could only get better after such a brutal drubbing in the second quarter and while the Warriors did not manage to make a game out of it in the third quarter, their all-but assured loss gave Steve Kerr a chance to give Klay Thompson 10 uninterrupted minutes of playing time to get his minutes total up to 20 minutes. Jonathan Kuminga also had a brief, but mostly uninspiring stint of minutes alongside Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, and for those of us who were masochistic enough to watch the entirety of this game, his play in the fourth quarter was at least mildly inspiring and helped the Warriors get the game (briefly) within 18 points before the Bucks put an end to any improbable Warriors’ comeback.
The next night, the Warriors, who were now without Gary Payton II in addition to Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, went to Chicago to face off against a Bulls team missing three key rotation players in Alex Caruso, Derrick Jones Jr., and JaVonte Green. Minutes into the game, the Bulls lost their star guard, Zach LaVine to an apparent knee injury. Things unraveled shortly thereafter for the Bulls as the Warriors pretty much did what the Bucks did to them the night prior to a Chicago team that looked wholly unprepared and overwhelmed in a 138-96 Warriors’ win.
The Warriors’ motion offense, which looked feckless and aimless for most of their game the night before, looked crisp to start the game and the Warriors hit four of their first five three-point attempts. You can see those shots and the offensive actions that preceded them below:
Steph Curry was quiet for most of the first quarter, but he didn’t really need to put points on the board as Andrew Wiggins shot 5/6 from the field in the period and Jordan Poole poured in 11 points on 7 shots, including three shots from deep. The Warriors led by (merely) 9 points at the end of the first quarter and then put the game out of reach in a second 12-minute stretch that was just as dominant as the Bucks’ second-quarter performance the night before.
Jonathan Kuminga opened the second quarter with two driving buckets and would finish the period with 12 points in nearly 8 minutes. There’s a wealth of Kuminga highlights from that period — and the whole game really — so I’ll post some of those below:
Kuminga’s explosive second quarter came alongside Steph Curry and Andre Iguodala, who was utterly dominant on the defensive stint and mucked up the Bulls’ offense with brilliant anticipation and quick hands. The Warriors so thoroughly beat the Bulls that Iguodala only needed to play 10 minutes, all of which came in the first half, but he finished the night with four steals, a block, and one of the best passes you’ll ever see an NBA player make:
The Warriors did just enough in the third quarter to ensure the game would go to garbage time in the final period and other than Steph Curry hitting two threes to finish the night 4/10 from deep and a few Jonathan Kuminga highlights, not much of note occurred in this period. The Warriors entered the meaningless final period of the game up 40 points, which let Jonathan Kuminga cap his career-best night with some garbage time minutes where he got some more possessions on-ball and as a screener in the pick-and-roll. You can see some of those highlights below:
The Warriors finished their road trip with a 119-99 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves where they ran out of gas and rolled over to their opponents in the waning minutes of the third quarter and start of the fourth. For much of the game, the Warriors stayed within striking distance of the Timberwolves. Even without Steph Curry, Gary Payton II, and Draymond Green, the Warriors got enough offensive juice from Jordan Poole and Jonathan Kuminga in the first half to make up for an invisible offensive performance from Andrew Wiggins.
Early in the third quarter, Andrew Wigins poured in 8 points in a little more than 60 seconds as the Warriors looked like they were on the verge of taking control of the game. Things got weird, however, when a potential Jordan Poole and-one over Patrick Beverley was ruled a blocking foul, which so infuriated Steve Kerr that he picked up a technical foul disputing the call. A few minutes later, Jordan Poole took an elbow to the top of his head from Beverley, which was somehow ruled a common foul on D’Angelo Russell and was not reviewed as a possible flagrant foul.
The Warriors played with a controlled fury in the minute or so after this hard foul and got their lead up to 80-79, but the wheels came off shortly after Jordan Poole and Kevon Looney subbed out for Andre Iguodala and Nemanja Bjelica. The insertion of the two veterans might not have been so costly if Malik Beasley hadn’t made his first three right about a minute prior — Beasley proceeded to rail five shots from deep in as many minutes after going scoreless for the entire game up until that point.
Beasley’s hot shooting seemed to have a particularly demoralizing effect on the Warriors, who were unable to secure a rebound of an airball at the end of the third quarter, which turned into a buzzer-beating tip-in by Karl-Anthony Towns that put the Timberwolves up by 10 points to start the fourth quarter. By the time the Warriors scored their first field goal of the fourth quarter at the 6:05 mark of the period— this was their first made field goal since Otto Porter Jr. hit a three at the 3:57 mark of the third quarter — the Timberwolves’ lead had grown to 25 points and the game was all but out of reach.
A couple minutes later, Chris Chiozza subbed in for the first time, which marked the beginning of garbage time, and the Warriors effectively threw in the towel.
What lineups played lots of minutes this week?
Some house cleaning: league-average ORTG is now 109.9, a .3 increase from my last post two weeks ago. This ranks as the fourth-highest ORTG in league history. 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:
Chiozza/Lee/JTA/Kuminga/Bjelica: +22.1 net rating (109.3 ORTG) in 22 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: +62.9 net rating (165.7 ORTG) in 17 minutes.
Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: +25.4 net rating (116.7 ORTG) in 11 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica: 0 net rating (93.8 ORTG) in 8 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: +38.9 net rating (122.2 ORTG) in 8 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Kuminga/Looney: +9.6 net rating (147.1 ORTG) in 7 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Thompson/Wiggins/OPJ: +25.4 net rating (131.3 ORTG) in 7 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Iguodala/OPJ/Kuminga: -92.3 net rating (61.5 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: +77.1 net rating (133.3 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Poole/Lee/Iguodala/Kuminga/Bjelica: -27.3 net rating (100 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Iguodala/Kuminga/Bjelica: +94.4 net rating (150 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Wiggins/JTA/Looney: -10 net rating (80 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Iguodala/Lee/Wiggins/Kuminga/Bjelica: -115 net rating (10 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Thompson/Wiggins/Iguodala: -100 net rating (50 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins/Iguodala/OPJ: +33.3 net rating (122.2 ORTG) in 4 minutes.
You’ll notice that the very first lineup here is a garbage-time unit. That is an unfortunate result of the Warriors being on the receiving end of two blowouts this week plus their obliteration of the Bulls, so let’s disregard that lineup. The success of the second lineup — Curry/Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney — is hilariously good. But there’s a caveat here; all of their minutes together came in the Warriors’ destruction of the Chicago Bulls. To that point, that lineup had never played a minute together before Friday’s night game. What I’m more interested in are the net ratings lineups with Klay Thompson together. In small sample sizes, all but one of the Klay lineups comes up positive here. For the sake of expanding our sample size, let’s take a look at all of the non-garbage time lineups Klay has played with. From Cleaning the Glass:
Note the tragic absence of Draymond Green in these lineups... in a small sample size, the Warriors have been quite good when Klay Thompson shares the court with Steph Curry and Gary Payton II. That’s quite encouraging and not terribly surprising. The unfortunate absence of Draymond Green sucks, but if there will be any good that comes out of it, it will be that Steve Kerr will get opportunities to give Klay Thompson reps alongside the Warriors’ players who have never played with him, which is to say, most of the roster. To that point, it’s encouraging to see Jordan Poole/Klay Thompson lineups come out mostly positive. I’d be especially curious to see Klay spend more time alongside Jonathan Kuminga, which feels like an inevitability now that Green is expected to miss at least the next two weeks.
Curry/Wiggins/Looney: +4.9 net rating (113.4 ORTG) in 54 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/Looney: +25.1 net rating (132.7 ORTG) in 49 minutes.
Lee/Kuminga/Bjelica: +19.3 net rating (110.2 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/OPJ: +32.1 net rating (136.7 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Wiggins: +10.1 net rating (109 ORTG) in 39 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: +28.7 net rating (112.6 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: +26.7 net rating (136.5 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/OPJ: +19.6 net rating (130.9 ORTG) in 37 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Wiggins: +33.4 net rating (137.2 ORTG) in 36 minutes.
Lee/JTA/Bjelica: +14.8 net rating (106.8 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Curry/Poole/OPJ: +37.7 net rating (137.7 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Poole/Iguodala/OPJ: -21.1 net rating (92.1 ORTG) in 28 minutes.
JTA/Kuminga/Bjelica: +27.7 net rating (115.4 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Looney: +36.6 net rating (141.7 ORTG) in 27 minutes.
Lee/JTA/Kuminga: +32.5 net rating (123.5 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
Poole/Thompson/Wiggins: +22.7 net rating (113.8 ORTG) in 26 minutes.
It’s remarkable that the Warriors got blown out twice this past week and still managed to have this many positive three-man combos. There’s only a few Klay Thompson combinations, which makes sense given his minutes restrictions, and while it might be weird to see that those lineups were only barely above league-average ORTG, I don’t think that’s a cause for concern. What sticks out to me in these Klay combos is that they’ve defended more than capably. Klay Thompson’s shooting will return to its normal levels at some point — he’s too good of a shooter for his percentages to warrant concern — it’s his defensive ability most people have (reasonably) assumed would take a long time to return to its pre-injury levels. As of yet, Thompson’s defense hasn’t been a cause for concern. That’s a win.
Here are the Warriors’ two-man combos that played at least 35 minutes together this past week:
Curry/Wiggins: +0.1 net rating (111.4 ORTG) in 80 minutes.
Wiggins/Looney: +6.9 net rating (115.6 ORTG) in 79 minutes.
Poole/OPJ: +14.1 net rating (119.5 ORTG) in 69 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins: +19.9 net rating (126.2 ORTG) in 65 minutes.
Lee/Kuminga: -0.8 net rating (100.8 ORTG) in 58 minutes.
Wiggins/OPJ: +14.6 net rating (127.3 ORTG) in 58 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins: +13.4 net rating (110.3 ORTG) in 56 minutes.
Curry/Looney: +4.9 net rating (113.4 ORTG) in 54 minutes.
Poole/Looney: +23.3 net rating (131.3 ORTG) in 52 minutes.
Lee/Bjelica: +10.7 net rating (104.4 ORTG) in 52 minutes.
Curry/Poole: +12.6 net rating (121.4 ORTG) in 48 minutes.
Curry/OPJ: +15.6 net rating (124.7 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
Kuminga/Bjelica: +16.3 net rating (107.6 ORTG) in 44 minutes.
Thompson/Looney: +26.5 net rating (112.6 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
OPJ/Looney: +25.5 net rating (134.4 ORTG) in 41 minutes.
Poole/Iguodala: -30.7 net rating (90 ORTG) in 40 minutes.
Curry/Thompson: +10.1 net rating (109 ORTG) in 39 minutes.
Lee/Iguodala: -27.6 net rating (88.2 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Poole/Kuminga: -10 net rating (111.3 ORTG) in 35 minutes.
The player that Klay Thompson has played most of his minutes next to so far is Andrew Wiggins. If Steph Curry had played against the Timberwolves, they’d probably have gotten another 20-25 minutes together to usurp the Thompson/Wiggins combo, but more generally I like the idea of most of Klay’s minutes being tied to one of Andrew Wiggins or Gary Payton II, at least until his legs and defensive ability are close to what they were pre-injury.
The other thing that sticks out to me in the above numbers is that Andre Iguodala’s two-man combos did not fare very well this past week. In Steph Curry’s absence, Andre Iguodala had to play the back-up point guard role against the Timberwolves and the Warriors did not do well in those minutes. That’s not really Iguodala’s fault — it’s pretty ridiculous that the Warriors don’t have a competent third-string point guard who can take some of the ball-handling responsibilities off of a literal 37-year old.
KLAY WATCH BABY!!!
Klay Thompson has played four games since returning from injury now. To date, his return against the Cavaliers stands out as the high mark of his season. Klay has looked mortal in the games since — that it is to be expected. When DeMarcus Cousins played his first game for the Warriors after returning from his Achilles rehab, he looked pretty incredible and explosive, all things considering. After that game, it took Cousins a while to get his legs under him and although his box score numbers were fairly impressive, he had several games where he looked exhausted and nowhere near as explosive as he was pre-injury.
All of this is to say that Thompson looking mortal after looking so impressive in his first game back is probably par for the course with an injury this severe. Likewise, we’ve seen Steph Curry look insanely explosive — remember game 4 against the Portland Trail Blazers in the 2016 playoffs? — in his first game back from injury before settling into a diminished version of himself as he plays himself back into rhythm.
Still, Thompson’s return has been encouraging, if only for how much respect he still commands from opposing defenses. This play from his first game back stands out in my mind:
Look at all that space Steph Curry has when he turns the corner!
The other thing that’s stuck out to me about Klay’s return is that he’s dribbling far more than he used to. There’s at least one obvious explanation for that; Draymond Green hasn’t played a minute alongside Klay Thompson, which means that the Warriors’ off-ball motion stuff hasn’t been nearly as potent. But I think — or at least I hope — that Klay’s willingness to dribble is an acknowledgement of the fact that the Warriors need really need on-ball creation, especially late in games.
I’m not necessarily advocating that the Warriors give the ball to Klay Thompson and have everyone else get the fuck out of the way late in games, but I do think that there’s merit to running plays for him late in games. Pre-injury, Klay Thompson had very obviously peaked and reached another level as an on-ball creator — anybody who watched game 6 of the 2019 Finals can attest to that. Kevin Durant’s addition to the Warriors didn’t really change Klay Thompson’s role, but I do think that it likely put a cap on his offensive responsibilities and I’ve wondered if Klay might have received more reps in the post or in semi-isolation in years 2016 through 2019 if Durant had never joined the Warriors.
Klay is not particularly explosive off the dribble or wiggly with the ball in his hands, but he’s such an incredible shooter that the threat of him pulling up gives him the chance to use head fakes and subtle changes of direction to create advantages against defenders that let him get to his spots. When Klay is hot, it doesn’t really matter who guards him, which is why I think there’s merit to occasionally giving him the ball in the post or giving him possessions, like say, a Steph/Klay pick-and-pop where he can attack against a lone defender, would benefit the Warriors. Here are a few examples of Klay making plays off the dribble since his return:
And then there’s Klay’s defense! He’s clearly not ready to chase around smaller, explosive guards, but he’s looked solid switched onto bigger guys and as a help defender. Here are a few such examples:
Through four games this season, Klay Thompson is averaging 13.8 points, 3 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 0.5 steals, 0.5 blocks, and 2 turnovers a game on 36/36/100 splits in 20.8 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:
Draymond Green’s absence will give Jonathan Kuminga an opportunity to stake an irreversible claim to rotation minutes and it seems that Steve Kerr is more than willing to give Kuminga the minutes necessary to force his way into the rotation. The first and immediate casualty of Kuminga’s increased playing time: Juan Toscano-Anderson. In last night’s game against the Timberwolves, JTA didn’t play until the game was slipping away from the Warriors and his minutes were a clear attempt at giving the Warriors a shot in the arm. Likewise for JTA’s stint against the Bucks. The last time that JTA got real rotation minutes was against the Grizzlies when he started and played 7 minutes in the first quarter and then 17 seconds in the second quarter where he turned the ball over and committed a foul before getting subbed out for the rest of the game.
Some good tweets from @fakelogic on Jonathan Kuminga’s impact numbers:
Some Kuminga data (via @cleantheglass): Warriors Overall: +8.3 net (3945 possessions) Chiozza OFF: +9.7 (3567) Chiozza & Kuminga OFF: +8.5 (3172) Chiozza OFF, Kuminga ON: +18.9 (395) So in a very small sample, Kuminga lineups are +10.4 ON/OFF as long as Chiozza isn't playing👀
1. Kuminga & Chiozza OFF: +8.5 (3172) Kuminga OFF, Chiozza ON: +4.1 (270) = -4.4 ON/OFF Trying to detach JK from the 2nd worst impact guy who plays Curry/Poole's positions. 2. No, but it's about difference anyway. Wiseman made key lineups worse. Kuminga is opposite as of now.@fakelogic @cleantheglass There isn’t actually much you can take from this data without more… (1) what are the comps with chiozza ON; and (2) weren’t literally all of the units without curry way into the negative last year?563 US 493 @borrfdad
The news of James Wiseman’s previously unreported knee surgery in December is dishonest at best and manipulative and nefarious at worst. The Warriors’ state media — Bob Fitzgerald and Kelenna Azubuike, the friendly Warriors’ scribes at NBCS Bay Area, and others — have spent much of the season hyping up Wiseman’s potential return, to the point of musing about the positive impact he could have against big bodies like DeAndre Ayton, Steven Adams, and others. Such musing has always been wildly optimistic given Wiseman’s lack of experience and the amount of reps he needs to get himself up to speed and re-acquainted with the Warriors’ system. But now that it’s clear he’s unlikely to play until after the All-Star break, he’ll have at best 30 or so games to get up to speed. In those circumstances, it’s highly unlikely he’s a positive contributor come playoff time, which begs the question: do the Warriors plan on beefing up their frontcourt at all?
What does this next week have in store for the Warriors?
The Warriors begin a 7-game homestand with games against the Detroit Pistons (10-32 record), the Indiana Pacers (15-28 record), the Houston Rockets (13-32 record), and the Utah Jazz (29-14 record).
My prediction for this week
The Warriors will go 3-1. The Warriors will beat the Pistons and Pacers but Klay Thompson will not play against one of the Pacers or Rockets. I expect he will sit against the Rockets and the Warriors will lose that game and then beat the Jazz.