Warriors week-in-review: 12/27 - 1/2
A review of the previous week, the Warriors' disjointed lineup combos in the time of the omicron variant, Jordan Poole's return and his role upon Klay Thompson's return, and assorted thoughts.
Who did the Warriors play?
The Warriors played a home game against the Denver Nuggets and had their next game on the road against the Nuggets canceled under curious circumstances. The Warriors then played the Utah Jazz on the road on Saturday night.
How did they do?
The Warriors went 1-1.
How did that happen?
The Warriors looked utterly out of sorts in the first half of their 89-86 loss to the Denver Nuggets. Juan Toscano-Anderson started in Draymond Green’s place — Green missed both games this week after being placed in the NBA’s health and safety protocols on December 26 — and the Warriors’ offense suffered for it. The Warriors scored merely 36 points in a first half where they had as many turnovers as they did three-pointers and free-throws combined, Steph Curry turned the ball over four times and shot 1/6 from the field while missing all five of his three-point attempts, and the Warriors went 4/14 from the free-throw line.
At various points, the Warriors had opportunities to chip into the Nuggets’ lead, but their inability to make free throws or put together consecutive possessions of good offense hurt them. Jonathan Kuminga had an active first-half stint where his aggression earned him multiple trips to the free-throw line, but he made only two of his 8 free-throw attempts, and although the Warriors looked played well in his minutes, his plus-minus came out to a flat 0. This was, unfortunately, the highest plus-minus of any Warrior in the first half.
When Kuminga checked out of the game at the 7:44 mark of the second quarter, the Nuggets led by 14 points. About a minute and a half later, Steph Curry checked out for Chris Chiozza with the Warriors down 15 points. When Curry came back in with just under 3 minutes left in the half, the Warriors were down 20, and by halftime, that Nuggets lead had grown to 24 points. This play summed up the Warriors’ first half as well as any sequence could:
The Warriors had two turnovers and shot 1/3 from the field in the opening minutes of the second half, but they started to find some traction about five minutes into the third quarter when Andrew Wiggins hit a three-pointer to cut the Nuggets lead to a mere 20 points. Over the next three minutes, the Warriors went on a 13-2 run fueled in part by Wiggins’ rim pressure, defensive activity, and passing. With the Warriors now in striking distance down by only 12 points, Steve Kerr subbed out Steph Curry but neglected to play Chris Chiozza. The result: the Warriors only lost their non-Steph minutes by one point and in the final possession of the period, Curry finally hit his first three-pointer of the night.
Five minutes into the fourth quarter, the Warriors had cut the Nuggets’ lead down to five points. Jonathan Kuminga scored six points at the rim and Curry hit two three-pointers during this mini-run. You can see two of Kuminga’s buckets below.
From the 9:21 mark and onwards, the Nuggets went ice cold from the field and made only three more field goal attempts. All three of Denver’s made buckets came off of putbacks or tip dunks. Will Barton’s putback at the :44 mark with the game tied 84-84 was particularly gutting — the Warriors had just tied the game after being down five points on a nasty Steph Curry pull-up three and a well-timed runout in transition by Gary Payton II. The Warriors would go on to score one more bucket on well-designed out-of-bounds play to cut the Nuggets’ lead to two points with 30 seconds left, but they failed to score on two more occasions with opportunities to tie the game. You can see those possessions below:
The Warriors were set to avenge their loss to the Nuggets on Thursday night, but early that afternoon, the Nuggets announced that they did not have enough active players to meet the NBA’s eight-man minimum and so the game was canceled. While Denver did have multiple players go into the NBA’s health and safety protocols after Tuesday night’s game, Draymond Green took offense to Thursday night’s postponement, and others in the Warriors’ organization were apparently peeved that the Nuggets simply did not activate any of their four players who were listed as questionable on the injury list, believing that the Nuggets actively chose to avoid this game.
Thursday night’s postponement did, however, give the Warriors an opportunity to hold a rare in-season scrimmage in the middle of a road trip. The result: Klay Thompson, who is expected to play his first NBA game in nearly three years on January 9 against the Cleveland Cavaliers, played his first minutes alongside Steph Curry since game 6 of the 2019 Finals. To give you a sense of the monumental importance of this scrimmage: this was the first time that Andrew Wiggins, who was traded to the Warriors in February of 2020, had played minutes with Klay Thompson. Likewise for Jordan Poole, Otto Porter Jr., Juan Toscano-Anderson and well... pretty much the entire outside of Steph, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney, and Andre Iguodala.
Two nights later, the Warriors came to Salt Lake City for a matchup against the 26-9 Utah Jazz. The Warriors were still without Draymond Green, Damion Lee, and Moses Moody, but Jordan Poole played for the first time in six games. Poole, however, did not start as he had for every game of the season — prior to the game, Steve Kerr announced that he would start Gary Payton II at the shooting guard, in part because of the matchup against the Jazz. Kerr’s decision to start GPII also served as an opportunity to test out Poole in the sixth man role he will occupy upon Klay Thompson’s return.
The Warriors and Jazz played a fairly well-matched game in the opening minutes, but things got ugly real quick when Rudy Gobert left the floor. In 13 minutes without Rudy Gobert, Utah had a -61.3 net rating, and the Jazz did themselves no favors in the first quarter when they went zone with Rudy Gay at the center against a potent Warriors’ lineup of Curry/GPII/Poole/OPJ/Bjelica and promptly gave up three easy looks in a row. When Steph Curry subbed out at the 2:24 mark of the first quarter, the Warriors led by 7 points and they led by five points at the end of the period.
A possible preview of Steph Curry’s substitution patterns with Jordan Poole coming off the bench when Klay Thompson returns: Curry played the first five and a half minutes of the second quarter, which happened to line up with Rudy Gobert’s minutes. The Warriors, who had largely ignored Gobert’s presence up until this point — save for some periodic reluctance to shoot in his vicinity in the first quarter — dragged him into high pick-and-rolls with Steph Curry and Kevon Looney. Here is one such example:
Despite the Warriors’ PNR barrage, the Jazz kept within a reasonable margin during Curry’s early second-quarter minutes, but when he subbed out, Andrew Wiggins went on to score or assist on all 9 of the team’s points in their non-Steph minutes. Wiggins finished the quarter with 12 points and the Warriors closed the half with a brilliantly drawn up DHO for Steph Curry, which you can see below:
It took less than 7 minutes for the Jazz to overcome the Warriors’ 14-point lead at the half and blunt their momentum. The Jazz made four three-pointers during their mini-run — they made only four in the entire first half — and they took advantage of a choppy pace and the Warriors’ obvious displeasure with the officiating to wrestle the lead back into their hands. The Jazz scored 41 points to the Warriors’ 22 in the third quarter and hit 6 three-pointers during their dominant third quarter, while the Warriors had as many technical fouls as they did made threes — two of them — and nearly had as many turnovers as they did assists during the third period.
The Warriors were down five points at the end of the third, but rather than turn to Steph Curry to keep the team afloat, Steve Kerr opted to surround Jordan Poole with Andrew Wiggins, Andre Iguodala, Otto Porter, and Jonathan Kuminga to start the fourth quarter. This non-Steph small ball unit got within a single point of the Jazz in nearly four minutes together and Kuminga’s defense on Jordan Clarkson was particularly impressive. Here are two examples:
When Steph Curry subbed back in at the 7:23 mark, the Warriors trailed by two points. Andre Iguodala and Jordan Clarkson traded tough buckets and Steph Curry hit an off-ball three to tie the game up with a little more than six minutes left in the game. Over the next two minutes, Andrew Wiggins scored all 8 of the Warriors’ points, which set the stage for Otto Porter Jr. to hit a tough mid-range jumper for his 20th points of the night to put the Warriors up five. The Jazz tied the game up with 2:13 left, but the Warriors effectively put the dagger in the Jazz by dragging Rudy Gobert into a slightly unorthodox spit action that ended in Steph Curry free-throw line jumper:
The Warriors scored five more points to put the kibosh on the Jazz and finished the game with a 123-116 victory in which Steph Curry scored 28 points on 8/18 FG and 6/12 3P and the Warriors got 25 and 20 points from Andrew Wiggins and Otto Porter Jr.
What lineups played lots of minutes this week?
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:
It’s been three weeks since I’ve been able to do a week-in-review post and in that time, the NBA’s league average offensive rating has climbed to 109.6, which is a .7 point increase from the last time I did one of these posts. If league average ORTG can climb another .8 points, it will tie the 2018-19 league average.
I was initially planning on just looking at lineup combos from this past week, but I’ve decided to expand that include all the lineup combos that have played since the Warriors had their first bout with the NBA’s health and safety protocols. I also haven’t made a week-in-review post since before the omicron era, so I figured that looking at lineups over a longer sample size would be more interesting than looking at two games’ worth of lineups from this past week.
Curry/GPII/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: +1.7 net rating (109.5 ORTG) in 30 minutes.
Curry/GPII/OPJ/Green/Looney: +36.7 net rating (150 ORTG) in 29 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica: +32.9 net rating (95.8 ORTG) in 12 minutes.
Chiozza/Lee/Wiggins/Iguodala/Bjelica: +42.4 net rating (147.4 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Wiggins/JTA/Looney: -15 net rating (85 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
Curry/Moody/Wiggins/Green/Looney: 0 net rating (100 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
Curry/GPII/JTA/OPJ/Green: +31 net rating (117.4 ORTG) in 10 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Kuminga/Green/Looney: +10 net rating (75 ORTG) in 9 minutes.
Curry/Lee/JTA/Green/Looney: -22.2 net rating (116.7 ORTG) in 9 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Iguodala/OPJ/Green: +90.1 net rating (161.5 ORTG) in 7 minutes.
Curry/Weatherspoon/Kuminga/OPJ/Bjelica: +15.7 net rating (135.8 ORTG) in 7 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Iguodala/Kuminga/Bjelica: 0 net rating (92.3 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Curry/Iguodala/JTA/Kuminga/Bjelica: +68.2 net rating (118.2 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Chiozza/Lee/JTA/Kuminga/Looney: -91.7 net rating (58.3 ORTG) in 6 minutes.
Iguodala/GPII/Wiggins/OPJ/Bjelica: 0 net rating (111.1 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Chiozza/Lee/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica: -10 net rating (140 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Iguodala/OPJ/Green: -46.7 net rating (83.3 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Chiozza/Moody/Lee/Kuminga/Bjelica: -79.8 net rating (109.1 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
Chiozza/Lee/Kuminga/Bjelica/Looney: +12.5 net rating (150 ORTG) in 5 minutes.
To give you a sense of how disjointed the Warriors’ rotations have been since the omicron variant began to make its way through the United States and the world at large, not a single one of these lineups has played more than two games together. The Curry/GPII/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney lineup, for example, hadn’t played a single minute together before these past three weeks and likewise for Curry/GPII/OPJ/Green/Looney. There are quite a few lineups in this list that probably won’t see many, if any, minutes for the rest of the season. Assuming Jordan Poole is healthy and Klay Thompson’s return goes smoothly, Chris Chiozza will probably be regulated to garbage time from here on out. You probably won’t see a Nemanja Bjelica/Kevon Looney frontcourt ever again, but let’s give kudos to that lineup for (improbably) winning its minutes in the 4th quarter of the Warriors’ cathartic home victory against the Memphis Grizzlies.
Curry/GPII/OPJ: +18.5 net rating (120.9 ORTG) in 97 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Looney: +12.6 net rating (121.9 ORTG) in 82 minutes.
Curry/Green/Looney: +9.5 net rating (121.1 ORTG) in 71 minutes.
GPII/OPJ/Looney: +8 net rating (125.2 ORTG) in 68 minutes.
Curry/OPJ/Looney: +23.7 net rating (130 ORTG) in 68 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/Looney: +3.4 net rating (111.6 ORTG) in 64 minutes.
Curry/OPJ/Green: +26.3 net rating (130.8 ORTG) in 63 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Green: +19.6 net rating (129.9 ORTG) in 56 minutes.
GPII/OPJ/Green: +4.9 net rating (124.6 ORTG) in 55 minutes.
GPII/Wiggins/Looney: -16.2 net rating (100 ORTG) in 47 minutes.
GPII/Green/Looney: +7.8 net rating (137.5 ORTG) in 45 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Wiggins: -4.2 net rating (105.4 ORTG) in 44 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins/OPJ: +11.9 net rating (120.7 ORTG) in 43 minutes.
GPII/Wiggins/OPJ: -8.4 net rating (108.4 ORTG) in 40 minutes.
Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: -2.3 net rating (116.3 ORTG) in 40 minutes.
Curry/Iguodala/OPJ: +7.6 net rating (111.5 ORTG) in 38 minutes.
Curry/JTA/Green: +9.1 net rating (113 ORTG) in 36 minutes.
Curry/Kuminga/Bjelica: +8.7 net rating (108.7 ORTG) in 35 minutes.
Curry/JTA/Looney: -1.4 net rating (103 ORTG) in 33 minutes.
Chiozza/Lee/Bjelica: +7.2 net rating (135.5 ORTG) in 32 minutes.
Curry/GPII/JTA: +14.5 net rating (100 ORTG) in 32 minutes.
GPII/Iguodala/OPJ: +1.6 net rating (101.6 ORTG) in 31 minutes.
OPJ/Green/Looney: +29.4 net rating (150 ORTG) in 31 minutes.
Curry/Lee/Green: +20.3 net rating (117.2 ORTG) in 30 minutes.
One unintended result of the extended COVID-19 related absences of Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins, and Jordan Poole: Steve Kerr got to test Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. in high-leverage minutes and in crunch time alongside Steph Curry and... whoever else was left to play in crunch time. GPII and OPJ acquitted themselves nicely — they played closing minutes in the Warriors’ victories against the Grizzlies, Suns, and Jazz, as well as the Warriors’ ill-fated comeback attempt against the Nuggets. It is curious, but not exactly surprising, that the GPII/OPJ combo becomes notably less potent when detached from Steph Curry.
Curry/OPJ: +18.1 net rating (123.2 ORTG) in 132 minutes.
Curry/Looney: +11.6 net rating (117 ORTG) in 127 minutes.
Curry/GPII: +15.3 net rating (117.7 ORTG) in 121 minutes.
GPII/OPJ: +7.7 net rating (117.1 ORTG) in 117 minutes.
Curry/Green: +15.3 net rating (121.1 ORTG) in 109 minutes.
GPII/Looney: -2.2 net rating (117 ORTG) in 96 minutes.
Green/Looney: +3 net rating (119.5 ORTG) in 79 minutes.
Curry/Wiggins: +5.5 net rating (114 ORTG) in 79 minutes.
OPJ/Looney: +14.6 net rating (128.8 ORTG) in 76 minutes.
Curry/JTA: 0 net rating (106 ORTG) in 75 minutes.
OPJ/Green: +14.1 net rating (126.8 ORTG) in 73 minutes.
GPII/Green: -4.3 net rating (117.3 ORTG) in 72 minutes.
Wiggins/Looney: +1.1 net rating (111.8 ORTG) in 71 minutes.
GPII/JTA: -0.8 net rating (98.4 ORTG) in 62 minutes.
Chiozza/Bjelica: -7.5 net rating (104.8 ORTG) in 62 minutes.
Kuminga/Bjelica: -10.8 net rating (98.4 ORTG) in 62 minutes.
Iguodala/OPJ: +4 net rating (109 ORTG) in 61 minutes.
Curry/Bjelica: +12.2 net rating (102.5 ORTG) in 60 minutes.
Curry/Iguodala: +17.1 net rating (114.5 ORTG) in 58 minutes.
Iguodala/Bjelica: +8.6 net rating (101.8 ORTG) in 57 minutes.
JTA/Looney: -30.2 net rating (96.4 ORTG) in 57 minutes.
Wiggins/OPJ: +4.9 net rating (117.1 ORTG) in 57 minutes.
GPII/Wiggins: -13.5 net rating (102.8 ORTG) in 52 minutes.
JTA/Green: -11.5 net rating (103.7 ORTG) in 52 minutes.
Curry/Kuminga: +14.1 net rating (104.7 ORTG) in 51 minutes.
For the most part, the net ratings of the above combos make sense, but there are some curiously negative combos in this list that are surprising. In 73 minutes since 12/16/2021, the combo of Gary Payton and Draymond Green have a 117.3 ORTG. This is quite good! What is more surprising is that this combo has a 121.6 DRTG, which is very bad. On the season, that combo has a 99.4 DRTG, so this probably isn’t cause for deep concern, but it’s still a curious anomaly.
Some other curious numbers from this time period: Curry/Bjelica, Curry/ JTA, and Curry/Kuminga all have a below-average ORTG. Some less surprising numbers: JTA/Looney has a brutal 96.4 ORTG — although their 120.8 DRTG is a shock — and JTA/Green wasn’t great on defense.
POOLE WATCH BABY!!!
Jordan Poole was set to make his return from the league’s health and safety protocols on Thursday night until the Nuggets announced that they didn’t have the necessary amount of healthy players to field eight active players. Poole returned instead against the Utah Jazz on Saturday night and played his first game all season in a bench role. As one might expect, Poole’s performance was somewhat uneven. He showed his typical burst and creativeness getting to the hoop and had a well-balanced shot diet — just two three-point attempts against 6 shots total — but he committed a few ugly, disjointed turnovers and ended the night playing less than 20 minutes for the first time all season.
One moment, in particular, stuck out to me: Poole dribbled out the clock at the end of the third quarter rather than take a heave in the backcourt to try to beat the buzzer. Given Poole’s history of actively seeking out buzzer-beating heaves and the fact that the Warriors were only down five points in a close game, something felt weird about this moment. Poole has never been one to play as if he cares about his shooting percentages — his decision to dribble the ball out felt oddly passive-aggressive. Poole’s decision not to heave had the unfortunate effect of coloring my view and memory of the rest of his night. As I re-watched the game tape, I found myself overanalyzing the meaning of Poole’s actions.
Take, for example, Poole’s off-ball activity: I know from having watched every Warriors’ game this season, that Jordan Poole likes to lull his defenders to sleep off-ball by walking through motions or on some occasions, standing still right before he bursts into a cut. I’ve seen Poole stand near the logo and still hold a defender’s attention for multiple seconds of an offensive possession, which in turn gives other Warriors’ players room to operate. And yet, something felt different about Poole’s motion, or occasional lack thereof, against the Utah Jazz. The Athletic’s Anthony Slater has hinted at the looming possibility that Jordan Poole might not be content to play a bench role on his next contract — as Klay Thompson eases back into consistent minutes Jordan Poole’s playing time and general attitude may be something worth monitoring.
Through 29 games this season, Jordan Poole is averaging 17.6 points, 3.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 1.0 steals, 0.2 blocks, and 2.5 turnovers per game on 44/34/90 splits in 30.2 minutes a game.
Here’s a visual representation of Poole’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:
Andrew Wiggins is now shooting 43.4% from three, which is by far a career-high, and ranks #9 in the league on three-point percentage by qualified players. The bulk of Wiggins’ three-point attempts are catch-and-shoot looks and he’s stroking those at a Klay Thompson-esque 45.7% on 4.2 attempts a game. Wiggins’ paint non-restricted area and midrange percentages are still decidedly eh (35.2% and 98.2% on 91 and 76 attempts respectively), but he’s shooting 72.9% from the restricted area on 118 attempts.
Otto Porter Jr. has taken nearly 70% of all of his midrange jumpers this season since the beginning of December and is now shooting 50% on 30 midrange attempts on the season. As the season has progressed, Porter Jr. has looked increasingly comfortable pulling up for jumpers off of the dribble and defending smaller guards on switches. Porter Jr. is unlikely to ever return to the heights he reached as max-contract player in his early 20’s for the Washington Wizards, but he’s become a very important player for the Warriors, even in his limited physical capacity. One number that gives you a sense of both how effective and limited OPJ has been this season: he’s taken 25 restricted area attempts against 32 midrange attempts this season.
Now 35 games in the season, Steph Curry has still been remarkably ineffective shooting from deep — 34.7% — on “open” threes when he has a defender between 4-6 feet away. Warriors fans keep expecting (reasonably) that at some point those percentages will trend upwards, but that’s yet to happen. Historically, Steph goes scorched earth post-All Star break. Hopefully, history repeats itself and his shooting on open threes comes along for the ride.
Another curious thing in Steph Curry’s shooting numbers: he’s shooting only 38% on threes taken very early in the shot clock — 22-18 seconds in — on 3 attempts a game, and he’s shooting 37.7% on threes where he’s taken 3+ dribbles prior to taking the shot.
Some numbers on drives: Chris Chiozza drives to the hoop 4.6 times a game in just 12.1 minutes a game — he has the highest drive rate of any Warrior player — and is shooting 8.3% from the field on his drives on 0.7 FGA attempts. This is to say, nearly 85% of the time that Chiozza drives to the hoop, he doesn’t attempt a field goal. Just 2.6% of Chiozza’s drive attempts end in points scored either by his own field goal attempts or assists. If you sort by players who play 10 or more minutes a game who have played at least 15 games this season and drive to the hoop at least once a game, Chiozza’s 2.6% PTS is by far the lowest of any player in the NBA. The next lowest is the Dallas Maverick’s Josh Green, who has an 11.1% PTS on his drives.
Some other numbers on drives: Jonathan Kuminga shoots 65.2% from the field on drives on 1.9 drives a game. This is slightly better than Draymond Green and slightly worse than Andre Iguodala, but the only person on the team that passes less than Kuminga on the drive is Kevon Looney, who passes 21.1% of the time on drives compared to Kuminga’s 21.1%. Kevon Looney’s drives, however, are typically something of a misadventure — he’s shooting only 30.8% on drives. Nemanja Bjelica shoots 34.4% on drives and has the second-highest turnover rate of any Warriors’ rotation player on drives (Chiozza is first with a 12.8% TOV), Otto Porter Jr. and Andrew Wiggins have the next worse field goal percentages on drives with 40% and 43.8% respectively. When factoring in a combination of volume and efficiency, Jordan Poole is the Warriors’ most effective driver: he drives 7.8 times a game and shoots it at 55% on 3.4 FGA, and has a 64.3% PTS.
As Klay Thompson nears his expected return, Jordan Poole is likely to play fewer minutes overall and more minutes without Steph Curry. Ideally, some of those non-Steph minutes might include Klay Thompson. Depending on his health, they may at some point even include James Wiseman. In the interest of curiosity, I looked at Cleaning the Glass’ non-garbage time minutes for Jordan Poole lineups that do not include Steph Curry. I’ve included a screenshot below of those 16 most used lineups:
Five of the lineups that have positive net ratings are small-ball lineups. Four of them have a true center on the court, although we should disregard all of the minutes played by Poole/GPII/Wiggins/JTA/Looney because those all occurred against the Detroit Pistons in a game that most of the Warriors’ key veterans missed. Cross-referencing against the NBA’s lineup stats where I can filter by date to include only the Warriors’ game against the Pistons, it becomes clear that Chiozza/Poole/Lee/Kuminga/Bjelica also played its only minutes of the year against the Pistons, so let’s ignore those two lineups. That leaves us with 7 total (meaningful) positive non-Steph lineups with Jordan Poole — five of those lineups are small-ball units and only two of them include true centers. What, if anything, can we learn from these numbers? For one, I’d hope that the lineups here with Klay Thompson in place of Damion Lee would be excellent offensively, but I’d also hope that the Warriors aren’t afraid of going small when Steph Curry sits and surrounding Poole with a combination of shooting and long, rangy wings/forwards. A lineup of Poole/GPII/Klay/Iguodala/OPJ, for example, seems like the type of 2nd unit that could hold its own defensively and rain fire from deep. I’d also be excited to see a Poole/Klay/Wiggins/OPJ/Green lineup get significant run.
What does this next week have in store for the Warriors?
The Warriors play the Miami Heat (23-14 record) at home in a couple of hours and Draymond Green and Damion Lee will make their return from the NBA’s health and safety protocols. The Warriors will then have a back-to-back on the road against the Dallas Mavericks (16-20 record) and the New Orleans Pelicans (13-23) record before returning to San Francisco for Sunday night’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers (21-16 record) when Klay Thompson is expected to play his first game since the 2019 Finals.
My prediction for this week
The Warriors will go undefeated this week and Klay Thompson’s return will be a weepy one.