Preview: Warriors get chance to quickly right ship against Nets
No news yet on Kuminga
Coming off a loss, the Golden State Warriors are hoping to quickly return to form after their fourth quarter meltdown doomed them in San Antonio. They’ll get their chance tonight with the Brooklyn Nets coming down from Sacramento on the tail end of a back-to-back.
It’s always going to be hard for this team to win when Curry doesn’t play well, but the results speak for themselves - sitting on top of the Western Conference grants a certain positional advantage. Sometimes the shots just don’t fall.
At time of writing, there’s no word regarding the availability of Jonathan Kuminga. He was a late scratch shortly before tipoff of the last game due to illness. The team didn’t sound overly concerned about him missing his first game of the season, and the hope is that he’ll be available.
Overall, the goal for tonight is to stabilize, not re-invent.
GAME DETAILS
WHO: Golden State Warriors (12-4) vs Brooklyn Nets (7-10)
WHEN: Monday November 25th 2024; 7pm PST
WATCH: NBCSBA
What went wrong?
There’s a certain silliness that comes with looking too closely at basketball stats. Golden State mostly died by the three. Curry himself had an off night, just 14 points (on 5-of-16 from the floor) and there was no one there to pick up the slack. Wiggins was the highest scorer - a comforting recent trend for him - but the entire team went ice cold in the 4th.
This is the same exact roster that has been winning so frequently this season, but something went haywire. Like Tiger Woods slicing a shot into the trees, the professional basketball players had a bit of a malfunction:
How cold did the Warriors go? Curry hit a three at the 6:38 mark to give the Warriors a 90-86 lead. The Warriors then didn’t score again until Draymond Green made a free throw at the 2:08 mark. Their next made shot wasn’t until Curry made a three at the 1:19 mark.
That means the Warriors went five minutes and 19 seconds without making a shot…
And it’s the NBA. The Spurs young players were absolutely phenomenal. A 40-13 run doesn’t happen by luck. There’s a rising tide of young talent in the NBA, and the Spurs seem to have found their pairing with the enormous and talented Victor Wembanyama and rookie Stephon Castle. Maybe it was just one of those nights, but Castle’s aggression on both ends of the court could help explain Curry’s struggles. Wembanyama is already a problem. Assuming he stays healthy, the Warriors aren’t going to be the only team scratching their heads. He had 25 points, 7 rebounds, 9 assists, as well as 3 blocks. It was a lot. This wasn’t just an example of one team going cold and losing the game.
So where to from here?
A big part of the answer is supposed to be Kuminga. Though he hasn’t taken the leap (yet) he’s been solid enough. There’s plenty of room for improvement, especially in regards to his shooting efficiency across the board. Looking at Cleaning the Glass, this poor shooting seems pervasive among many of Golden State’s key reserves.
Kuminga has the second highest usage behind Curry, so this impact is a little bit concerning - and probably a big part of the reason that Kuminga has seen his minutes drop. He’s not bad, but the Warriors need a bit more than averages of 13.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.9 assists on 45/31/61 shooting from the field if he’s looking for a large contract.
This is his least efficient scoring season by far, and a huge gap from last season’s career-best mark of 120 points per 100 shot attempts. That number is all the way down to 103 points per 100 shot attempts this year - which drops him from the 71st percentile last season (very good) all the way down to the 15th percentile this season.
The miles on the older legs on the floor is a consideration, but the Warriors have leaned on their oldest and most trusted pillars to bear the weight.
Maybe I haven’t been nice enough to Buddy Hield, or maybe it’s that Kings fan I know whispering in my ear about how many fans have had their hopes broken by him. So far so good though - maybe even better than good. Sometimes having a “balanced” roster means that you’ve got a mix of players. The Warriors offense has been humming this season, and it’s definitely not time for any large adjustments.
Here’s the list of the Warriors most efficient weapons.
Prediction
Golden State is fine, sometimes you just shank one into the woods.
In case you were feeling good about your brain, a Scrabble update:
Nigel Richards is widely regarded as the greatest English language Scrabble player of all time, with many world championships. He doesn't give interviews, so it's hard to know his motivations, but it appears that in 2015 he got bored, so he spent nine weeks memorizing the FRENCH dictionary and won the French world championship, despite *not speaking French.* He won it again twice later.
And recently, just for funsies, he's back at it. He won the **Spanish** world championship.
Even if we accept that he's got ridiculous memorization skills, he also has otherworldly strategy skills. For example, when his strategic blocking moves are analyzed by computer, they are only identified as the optimal move by the best computers at the highest analysis settings. Every other computer engine doesn't see them.
Tthe Spanish tile set is significantly different from English, so having a sense, for example, of what to plan for when you have an LL tile and the rest are vowels requires more than just word knowledge. Btw it was his first ever Spanish language tournament.
An excellent breakdown by the best Scrabble video maker here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RvNxkQ6Bgs
Wemby: 3 blocks, or maybe 2 blocks and one goal tend, but no, I'm not bitter.
Agreed that this felt like a schedule loss. Now just make sure the Dubs return the favor to the Nets tomorrow.