Kerr's Warriors refuse to quit on the season, punish Grizzlies in Memphis

NO STEPH, NO JIMMY, NO ZINGIS, NO PROBLEM!

There’s a version of the Warriors fan who woke up in February convinced the franchise was on life support. There are plenty of reasons for that.

Steph Curry hasn’t played a single minute this month. Jimmy Butler is done for the season before he barely got started. Jonathan Kuminga is in Atlanta and instantly became the greatest player in Hawks franchise history. And Kristaps Porzingis, the big they were supposed to build something with, has barely seen the floor. By every measure of conventional basketball wisdom, this team should be drifting toward mediocrity, killing time and giving the front office an excuse to tear something down.

But to that fan, I would say hey buddy look out! Steve Kerr’s Warriors are playing some of the most connected, purposeful, flat-out beautiful basketball in the entire league, and the numbers are starting to scream it.

They went down to Memphis last night and kicked the last remaining scraps of the Grizzlies Grit-n-Grind into an incinerator, piling up 37 assists in a 133-point night. Those were last night’s highest scoring and assists total of the night, albeit against an unrecognizable Memphis team. Even still that kind of number doesn’t happen by accident. You don’t see that because one player got hot or the defense fell asleep. It comes from five players seeing the same picture at once, cutting into space before the pass is thrown, trusting the next decision before it arrives.

Thirty-seven assists on 49 made field goals is WILD. That number alone tells the story, but the distribution tells it better. Nobody dominated the ball because everybody touched it. The starters set the tone in this one as Will Richard led the way with 21, slashing and floating into space like he knew the pass was already coming. Brandin Podziemski filled the gaps with 19 points, eight rebounds, and six assists, the connective tissue holding possessions together. Gui Santos dropped 17 on 6-of-7 shooting, one of those quiet near-perfect nights where every touch felt inevitable. Moses Moody knocked in 14 with the calm efficiency that has started to look routine.

And then the bench came crashing in like a second unit that refused to be background noise. Gary Payton II matched Podziemski with 19 of his own, flying around the floor like it was 2022 again. Pat Spencer ran the game for 32 minutes and handed out nine assists, finishing +23 in a performance that felt like pure system basketball. The Warriors were one more Malevy Leons point away from all nine players scoring in double figures! By the middle of the third quarter the game had the feeling of inevitability, not because one Warrior had taken over, but because all of them had.

Step back far enough and the whole month starts to look strange in the best possible way. At the time of this writing, the Warriors are averaging 30.2 assists per game in February, second in the league behind only San Antonio. For the month they’ve had 74% percent of their made baskets assisted, the highest mark in the NBA by a comfortable margin. And for February their assist ratio sits at 21.4 per hundred possessions, another league-leading number. Let’s not forget they’re averaging just under 17 triples per game this month as well, good enough for 2nd in the NBA. These are not survival stats. These are belief stats, the fingerprints of a team that trusts what it’s doing even when the biggest names aren’t available to carry it.

For years there’s been that joke floating around Dub Nation social media (half complaint and half philosophy debate) that Kerr’s offense is Communist Ball, a system that spreads touches too evenly, suppresses stars, and hands minutes to role players who haven’t earned them. The argument got loudest every time Steph Curry’s opportunities were minimized in the name of the extra pass; those times when the offense chose movement over hierarchy.

Maybe it’s the magical power of Black History Month, I’m not sure. But strip away Curry, Butler, and Kuminga and the assist numbers are still up. That tells you something real about the coaching. The system isn’t suppressing greatness, in fact it’s creating the conditions for everyone to show up. Who has it better than us? Jim Harbaugh made the line famous on NFL sidelines, and maybe several teams have a better answer if we’re being honest about the standings. But from a pure joy-of-basketball standpoint, this group has stumbled into something that feels contagious to watch.

Kuminga is gone now. The exit was messy, the social media fallout loud, and the debate about his development will probably last longer than this roster does. But here in February his absence hasn’t created a hole. It has created space, literal and figurative, for a squad that has committed itself completely to Kerr’s vision of how basketball is supposed to be played. That isn’t an argument against what Kuminga might become somewhere else. It’s simply an observation about what this group is doing this month without their top dogs. They are sharing the ball at a rate that leads the league. They are defending with enough intensity to rank near the top in steals. Each night is must see TV to watch this hodge-podge of hustling hoopers fight for their franchise.

Kerr still knows exactly how to coach basketball. He is pulling real production out of players who barely registered in the national conversation two weeks ago. He is maintaining a team-first identity without the superstar who defines it. This might end up being one of the quietest masterclasses of his tenure. Nobody outside the Bay is writing think pieces about it. There are no banners riding on a February run. But for those of us who have watched this team long enough to recognize what real Warriors basketball looks like, what is happening right now feels worth holding onto.

Strength In Numbers was never just a slogan. In February 2026, it is showing up in the box score in a beautiful way. Let’s just see what they can do if they can add some healthy stars to the mix.