Preseason opener:
Warriors look rusty in loss to Nuggets, making only five three-pointers.
Steve Kerr’s wife, Margot, returned home Saturday afternoon from Whole Foods with an assortment of jet-lag remedies. Less than 24 hours shy of a 16-hour flight to China, she wanted to help make sure the Warriors get their body clocks on track as quickly as possible.
No powder or pill, however, can knock off the proverbial rust that comes with three-plus months away from NBA action. In its 108-102 loss to Denver in its preseason opener at Oracle Arena on Saturday night, Golden State struggled with perhaps its most defining skill: threepoint shooting.
The Warriors finished just 4-for-33 (12.2 percent) from beyond the arc. Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green — a group that features at least two of the top three-point shooters in NBA history — went a combined 1-for-19 from deep.
“Hopefully we’ll shoot 5for-33 next game instead of 4-for-33,” Kerr said with a smile. “You know, just get one better game by game.”
After ranking third in the league last season with a threegame point percentage of 38.3, Golden State hopes to inch closer to 40 percent from beyond the arc. New addition Nick Young, who owns a 37.6-percent clip from three-point range, should benefit from the extra space Curry, Thompson and Durant provide. The Warriors will add another solid long-range marksman for Thursday’s exhibition against Minnesota in Omri Casspi, who missed Saturday’s matchup to observe Yom Kippur.
That Golden State struggled so mightily from deep in its first action since Game 5 of the NBA Finals is no great concern. Only a week into training camp, it’s expected to be imperfect. The Warriors, though a far more complete product than they were at this point a year ago, are in the early stages of incorporating three new players on guaranteed contracts.
None of Golden State’s players logged more than 24 minutes Saturday. With the Warriors nursing a 71-70 lead midway through the third, Kerr began to pull his starters. There was no need to risk injury in a that didn’t matter.
“It was just good we got to play against some other competition besides each other,” center JaVale McGee said. “It was fun.”
The two Warriors newcomers that were available Saturday — Young and Jordan Bell — showed flashes of their potential. Young accounted for half of his team’s made three-pointers. Bell, a second-round pick from Oregon, entered for the first time midway through the third quarter and quickly made his presence felt. Moments after hammering home an alley-oop dunk off a feed from Green, he took another Green pass in for a layup.
Outside of being off from long range, Curry (11 points, four rebounds), Durant (10 points, four rebounds), Thompson (10 points) and Green (eight rebounds, four assists, one block) reminded many how dominant they were last season. The highlight of the night came early in the third quarter, when Curry tossed a three-quarter-court pass to Zaza Pachulia, who finished with the layup.
Before Golden State focuses on how to build off Saturday’s opener, it must overcome jet leg. The Warriors will jump ahead 15 hours when they touch down in Shenzhen, China, for its first of two exhibitions against Minnesota.
When his wife came home with those jet-leg remedies Saturday, Kerr asked, “How long do you think it’ll take us to adjust?”
“Probably four or five days, and we’ll be fine,” Margot said.
The good news for Golden State is that it figures to regain its stroke from deep sooner. After all, it still boasts core pieces from its 2015-16 roster that shattered the NBA’s threepointers record with 1,077 in a season.
“I just think we’re a really bad three-point shooting team,” Green said, laying on the sarcasm. “We probably shouldn’t shoot those.”