The Jimmy Butler era begins: the Warriors go down big, come back big, play with joy.
This is a really good feeling for Dub Nation.
Ladies and gentlemen, the DNHQ crew is firing on all cylinders with new reinforcements like Riley, Splash Fro, and now today we have Duncan! Show some love to the new teammates!
On January 5th, the Warriors lost big to their hated NorCal rival, the Sacramento Kings, 129-99. The Kings had just fired Mike Brown and suddenly seemed to be taking off from a disastrous first half of the season. They looked changed, improved, and had clawed out of a rut. The Warriors, meanwhile, were still coming to terms with their own mediocrity. Obviously, you know the story: they had started the season 12-3, and were capping off a nightmare 6-14 stretch to drop them right back to .500.
The Warriors were never competitive. Sacramento punched them in the face immediately and fatally: they were down 17 before the first quarter ended. Dennis Schroder went 1-of-7, Trayce Jackson-Davis went 0-of-3, and despite solid games from Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins the Warriors looked completely outclassed.
In the post-game press conference, Steph said something that I’ve been mulling over for the past month: the 2025 Warriors, in their essence, were not a team that was “built to… have a crazy comeback”. In retrospect, this was probably the point where a trade was inevitable: in the modern NBA, teams can go on random, crazy runs all the time. Everyone is talented, and most teams can get hot from 3. If a team is not built to come back, they’re not built to be competitive. The Warriors were not competitive.
In the month since, the Warriors have been the definition of .500, alternating convincing wins with demoralizing losses. There has been one constant – Steph has looked miserable. Every shot of him on the sidelines, you can see the toll the past two months of basketball has had on him. He’s staring into the distance, he’s looking at his feet, he’s pacing around smiling at the ceiling as the Warriors collapse. The Night-Night has been put to bed for months. This was not emotionally sustainable.
As the Warriors went down 24 points in the third quarter, I kept thinking about how the Warriors were not built for this. In the first quarter, they had been looking like a normal basketball team for the first time in a while – in Butler, they finally had a guy athletic and skilled enough to catch an alley oop (editors note: lmao). They drove and kicked out to a shooter a few times, and the shooters made shots!
Butler in the starting lineup made the Warriors look average again, at least. But leading the bench unit proved more difficult– he returned to the game with a 3 point lead, but the bench unit looked unfamiliar. An off shooting night by Moody (who would end the game 0-of-5 from 3) didn’t help things. By the beginning of the second quarter, the bench unit looked completely unable to either score or defend the perimeter. The starters returned; the emboldened Bulls’ confidence remained.
The Bulls popped off a 25-3 run, sending the Warriors toppling to the mat. It looked to be the worst-case scenario for the Warriors: the loss of Wiggins fatally compromised the perimeter defense, Jimmy Butler was either too passive, unfamiliar, or washed to make up for those losses. They were back to their patented offense of passing around for a little bit until a mid shooter jacked up a three.
By the third quarter, the bleeding accelerated. Coby White and Jalen Smith in particular were emboldened by Warriors defensive miscommunications, shooting a combined 10-for-14 from 3. The Warriors were down 24, and at last estimation, were not built for a comeback.
After the demoralizing losses in LA and Utah, losing big to a hapless Bulls team to send them 2 games under .500 might actually be too much to emotionally or mathematically come back from. The Warriors would be established at 11th in the West, with feisty Portland and San Antonio teams smelling blood. Maybe the Butler fit would take time, but the Warriors have lost the luxury of having time. I felt doom.
With 8 minutes left in the third quarter, with the Warriors at their lowest, they made an adjustment. Kerr went to Draymond Green at the 5 with Butler, Buddy Hield, Moody, and Steph around him – a lineup that could run like hell and switch against everything. Very 2016. Steph also made an adjustment: he reached deep and found some reserve of energy, and made the simple decision that the Warriors would not lose this game.
It’s cliché, but you’ve seen it before, even if this season that extra gear has been rare. But it’s the same extra gear that he had in Boston in 2022, in Sacramento in 2023, in Paris in 2024, in countless earlier games. Sometimes you just know he’s got it. It’s beautiful to watch.
The nuclear flurry – a four point play, Steph beating his man around screens a few times – seemed to give the rest of the team a jolt of energy. What looked like a sleepy, demoralized, depressed, old team seemed to overflow with energy and enthusiasm. Gui Santos maintained his position as primary sparkplug, playing excellent defense and destroying the Bulls on the offensive boards.
Brandin Podziemski was at his best, pesky and annoying and constantly rolling around on the ground (second highest +/- on the team, after Draymond!). Curry’s game expanded beyond his basic “run around in circles and shoot” archetype – he played tough defense, ripping the ball away from Josh Giddey at one point, and then drove for layups instead of settling for threes. And when he settled for threes, he made them.
This Warriors team has broken my trust countless times, but there was one key moment where I truly believed that this wasn’t a fake comeback. With 1:50 left in the third, the Warriors had managed to get the game within 3. Curry was hot enough that Kerr had to let him play through his typical substitution pattern, sharing the floor with Butler during typical bench minutes.
He launches a three, misses, Kevon Looney grabs the offensive rebound. Podz gets it, drives in for a little midrange floater, misses it. Steph sprints in from out of frame, leaping under the basket and grabbing the offensive rebound, putting up a circus layup between two much taller Bulls players. The ball starts to rim out, but Butler, in perfect position, taps it in.
During a replay review the next play, the camera zooms in on the Warriors bench, showing something I haven’t seen in ages: Steph Curry, smiling, laughing, chopping it up.
At this point I fully believed in my lizard brain that the Warriors would win. The logical part of my brain knew that this team has been the king of the fake comeback – but this is not the same team as we saw on Thursday. That level of energy and coordination is not something the 2025 Warriors consistently produce. This is something new. Steph Curry would score 24 points in the third quarter alone.
Once the Warriors took the lead, the Bulls never seriously threatened again: the new Jimmy-led bench unit got a chance to redeem themselves and hit the Bulls with a final knockout punch. Jimmy Butler lends a completely new scoring dimension to this team when he’s on the court – the Warriors have never had a free throw merchant before, and man, it’s such a luxury. Jimmy Butler has the ability to pressure the rim, slow the game down, take the opponent out of rhythm.
He’s the hub of the offense, an unselfish and generous distributor, but he doesn’t need to rely on shooting luck to contribute. There’s an element of grift here, of contorting his body to draw contact and fouls, but it’s also just pure physical dominance. When he can power to the rim like that, all the opponent can do is grab him or smack him.
My other takeaway from the fourth quarter was that, man, the Warriors are gonna be annoying to play against. Those Draymond/Podz/Butler lineups are pure rat mode basketball – free throws, flailing limbs, diving to the ground, barking at the ref, shoving guys in the back. Horribly unethical. Awesome to watch if it’s your team.
This was a bad Bulls team, of course, no longer driven by Zack Lavine and always in the netherworld between tanking and maybe trying to make the play-in. But a 67-18 run is not a thing this Warriors team does against anyone. Jimmy has talked about finding his joy again playing basketball, and I dismissed it a little bit.
Like, I’d be joyful too if someone pays me $112 million. But it wasn’t just Jimmy – the Warriors look joyful. More than that, the Warriors took a punch and came back. We’ll see how far they can ride it, but the early returns are spectacular.
Stray Observations
Quinten Post continues to be very situational. He looked like he would be run off the floor through the first quarter – good offense, but a sieve on defense that gave back everything he got. In the fourth quarter, he looked much more solid on defense and great on offense. To this point, Kerr has done a good job clocking when Post is overmatched and going in a different direction. I expect his play time to continue to fluctuate.
A consequence of Post not being playable every game – Draymond’s the de facto center of this team. No way around it. He’ll play all the key minutes there. Sorry about your back, Dray.
With Butler to run the bench units, Steph’s rotation is back to normal. No more weird rests in the middle of the first and fourth quarters.
Good Buddy game! Shot looked great, lots of energy on defense. Maybe not making the best impression on his new teammate, though.
I just like this Butler fit. It’s early, but the spacing looks good, the defense doesn’t look super compromised. An extra playmaker around Steph just multiplies what he can do off-ball, and when he’s the primary offensive engine the Warriors play completely differently.
Editor’s note: I’m excluding Jimmy Buckets from the Warrior Wonder poll for the same reason we don’t add Steph…WHICH IS THAT HE’S TOO DAMN GOOD!
 | A guest post by
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New E1P is up, but comments should stay here.
Nice E1P! Short but shows the versatility of Butler. He's a good screen-setter (critical to be able to work with Steph), makes a nice dish out to Podz after the roll, and then shows his skills as a finisher. Not bad for a guy who hadn't even practiced with the squad before last night's game.
Is it too early for an irrationally good feeling about this guy?