65.
That’s the combined number of points the Warriors lost by in their first two games of the season. The Brooklyn Nets throttled them by 26 on opening night before the Bucks shot them to death on Christmas day in a 39-point massacre.
Yes. 39.
We learned a lot from these two beatings. These Warriors have some real flaws and areas to improve in. But despite what the toxic prison that is Warriors Twitter might suggest, this team isn’t out of the playoff race. Steve Kerr doesn’t need to be arrested and Steph isn’t done. Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre Jr. aren’t the worst players in the league.
Let’s separate the genuine takeaways from the overreactions.
Takeaway: The Warriors can’t shoot
In what can only be described as a strange twist of fate, the team that once boasted a lineup with three of the best ten shooters of all time now has a gaping hole in that regard.
The Warriors shot 20/78 from beyond the arc during their first two games, according to ESPN. That’s good for just a hair over 25%.
25% is not going to cut it.
The NBA is a three-point shooting league now. League average has hovered around 36% for the last few years. This team will not reach that marker. But, if they are going to compete, they need to come close.
Fortunately, their shooting rate is unsustainably terrible. Just look at their most featured offensive players thus far.
Curry, a career 43% three-point shooter (and the greatest shooter of all time) is just 9/35 from deep. Wiggins, perhaps the most consistent 33% shooter ever, is 4/13. Oubre Jr., who shot 35% from three last year and has improved his percentage every season, is a violent 0/17.
Oh, and rookie James Wiseman? He’s the lone shooting bright spot on the team, having drained five out his first six threes.
This team isn’t going to blow anyone’s doors off from beyond the arc. But they’re not going to shoot 25% all season. Curry will progress to the norm, and Wiggins and Oubre Jr. will do frustrating versions of the same. Kerr will inevitably start giving more minutes to some of his deep bench guys who can shoot. Wiseman’s shooting numbers aren’t sustainable at 80%. But his stroke looks real. Shooting anywhere from 34-37% isn’t out of reach for him, and would open his and the team’s games up immensely.
This team lacks elite shooting. But improvement from the bottom is unavoidable, and they will, sooner than later, shoot well enough to be competitive and avoid blowouts like the two from opening week.
Overreaction: Steph isn’t Steph anymore.
Concern here isn’t totally unwarranted. Steph hasn’t been himself so far. At least not outside of brief flashes.
https://twitter.com/TheHoopCentral/status/1342580362745061376
He hasn’t attempted to take over at all, and looks disengaged and frustrated at times. Most obviously, he hasn’t shot with the assassin-like accuracy we’ve become accustomed to. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s off to a slow, rusty-looking start.
Curry is almost 33 years old and last played meaningful basketball games in March of last year (if you want to call those meaningful). He’s playing with a brand-new roster that clearly isn’t acclimated to an offense predicated on his off-ball movement. They’re not finding him when they should and they’re not taking advantage of the space he’s creating.
As the team gels, Steph will look more like himself.
And the numbers paint a far uglier picture than the eye test reveals. Steph, like the rest of the team, got a lot of good looks. But he’s shooting just 30% on “open” threes (4-6ft of space) and 12% on “wide open” threes (6+ feet of space.) They just haven’t been falling–but this is Steph Curry we’re talking about. That will change.
Among all the negative chatter, it’s also important to note that Curry’s passing has been dynamite. Even with the Warriors shooting so poorly, he is finding his teammates on the roll and for threes. He’s averaging eight assists thus far, and that number will increase if his teammates begin converting at a semi-respectable rate.
The law of averages tells us both he and his teammates will play better going forward, and Curry’s effect and numbers will increase as a result. Expect him to really get going during this next stretch of games against the Bulls and the Pistons.
Overreaction: The Warriors need to trade Andrew Wiggins yesterday
Wiggins isn’t going to be an elite NBA player. He’s two months from being 26 and that ship sailed almost 26 years ago. But he is better than his first showings of the 2020-2021 season indicate.
The first game of the season against Brooklyn was the worst of what Wolves fans remember from his tenure in Minnesota, and everything Warriors fans were hoping wasn’t true. Wiggins looked ill-prepared for the bright lights of a marquee opening-night game against an elite Nets team. He missed some canyon-wide open threes to start the game and made only four of his sixteen shots–many of which were contested mid range jumpers. He only had one assist and turned the ball over four times.
Wiggins looked only marginally better in game two against the Bucks. He finished six of eighteen from the field, zero of four from behind the line, and didn’t log a single assist.
What was encouraging, however, was an apparent willingness to attack the basket off high screens and seal weaker defenders in the paint for easy buckets. All six of his made baskets came in the paint. See here.
Wiggins, like the rest of this team, is still learning his role. He is a great athlete with solid finishing ability. The first two games, though telling about Wiggins’ approach, were anomalous. He’s a career 20-point-per-game scorer with a 33% three point shot. He will start trending towards those numbers soon enough. The question is whether it will look more like the successful parts of his game against the Bucks, or his frustrating “I-still-wish-he-hadn’t-taken-that-shot” makes against the Nets.
Wiggins’ defensive effort thus far is real. He hasn’t been perfectly on that end by any stretch but he is trying. That’s half of what Golden State is hoping for from him. The other half is an efficient slasher and league-average corner three-point shooter. It’s doubtful the Warriors see that player every game. They can, however, reasonably expect him to make more appearances than he has in the past.
Takeaway: Wiseman is the Real Deal
It would be totally reasonable for Wiseman to struggle mightily to start the season. He played just three competitive games over the last 12 months after his season with the University of Memphis was cut short by NCAA complications. He missed most of training camp recovering from COVID-19. His first two outings have come against two of the best teams in the league, a prospect that would daunt any young player.
But through three games, the rookie center is the Warriors’ second best player. He’s putting up 14.7 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks in 24.0 minutes per game. What’s more impressive is how’s looked on the way to those numbers. He is a natural partner with Steph on the pick-and-roll and his shooting stroke looks like the second most trustworthy on the team.
Wiseman is not as developed on the defensive end. He gets lost on defensive rotations and gets beat backdoor. This is to be expected from a rookie who’s missed most of his team’s practices. There are really encouraging signs, however. He demonstrates a real ability to deter shots at the rim with his length and has on more than one occasion made up for his defensive lapses with his athletic ability. Averaging a block and a half in just 24.5 minutes a game isn’t too shabby either.
The defense will come for Wiseman. He’s too talented and athletic for it not to. And when it does, the young man is going to be a two-way force.
Watch what Draymond Green said about Wiseman’s hot start in a recent interview with The Athletic’s Anthony Slater.
Warriors get their first win against the Chicago Bulls
On Sunday night, the Warriors squeezed out their first win of the season after Damion Lee hit a three pointer to take the lead in the closing seconds.
The game was ugly–but less so were the team’s first two losses.
The defense never looked close to the top-10 iteration Kerr envisions.
The center rotation — adjusted to include Eric Paschall in the wake of Marquese Chriss’s season-ending leg injury — is ill-equipped to protect the paint right now. Wiseman, an athletic freak in every regard, made countless mistakes. He bit on every pump-fake, picked up unnecessary fouls (4 in 23 minutes), and missed rotations.
But that’s okay. He will improve with time and reps. Kevon Looney is in an opposite boat. He’s a smart defender and knows what to do, but his body very clearly isn’t equipped to take on heavy minutes. He was the Warriors’ best defensive option in the paint on Sunday, though.
The offense was a different story.
It wasn’t machine-like by any means, but it was certainly improved. Kerr inserted forward Juan Toscano-Anderson into the starting lineup in place of Eric Paschall to boost the unit’s overall IQ. He also gave his shooters more minutes, and tweaked the scheme a bit. Here’s what Kerr had to say about the it, per Slater:
“Well, I feel like really simplifying how much stuff we’re running and what we’re running,” he said. “We’ve run certain stuff over the years, and there’s been various groups of players who’ve been comfortable with a certain style. I think with this team, I’m finding we need to get more guys into high step-ups, getting them downhill, spacing the floor. We’re going to shoot a lot of 3s, for sure. We shot 47 tonight. What we’re trying to get to is more drive and kick. We did a better job of that. Getting into the paint, kicking it out, playing simple basketball.”
The adjustments were most apparent in Wiggins’ game. As opposed to creating in isolation like too many possessions in the previous two games, Wiggins initiated a lot of actions from high screens. He finished the game with four assists and zero turnovers, charged into the paint for strong finishes at the rim, and threw beautiful kick-out passes to open shooters. And those shooters converted.
The team shot 18/46 from three for an efficient 38.6%. As expected, two of the squads’ better shooters in Damion Lee and Mychal Mulder got more meaningful minutes and made the most of them. They combined to make six threes on ten attempts.
This simplified drive-and-kick offense combined with a bit of the off-ball motion Warriors fans have become accustomed to will continue to lead to open looks from three. In cyclical fashion, it will also keep driving lanes open for players like Wiggins, Oubre Jr. and Paschall.
Oubre Jr. especially will need the extra space. He is still yet to convert on a single of his seventeen three-point attempts for the season, finishing this game 0/6. Despite his shooting struggles, Oubre Jr. still brought energy. He ended up with a nice line of eight points, 11 rebounds, four steals and was a team high +9 for the evening.
Curry finally broke out
Steph began the game similarly to the previous two. He looked lethargic to start and was 7/19 at the end of three quarters.
Curry seemed to make the turn we’ve been waiting for after spending the 3rd quarter getting himself into a rhythm at the foul line. He dropped in an efficient and boisterous 13 points in the fourth, including a familiar and-one drive and went 3/4 from beyond the arc. He finished the game with 36 points and six assists, and finally regained that flare we’re used to.
The Warriors will need to see this Curry again in Tuesday’s game against Detroit.
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