Warriors’ formula for turnaround is easy to spot
If the Warriors want to shake their .500 feeling and make a push not only for a legitimate playoff spot, but another NBA title as well, the formula is quite simple.
Executing that simple formula, however, might be beyond this team’s capabilities. We’ll find out in the next eight weeks.
We know the Warriors can score. They can score without Steph Curry and they score more with him. In all, offense is not a problem: The Warriors score the second-most points per game (118.6) and have the second-best effective field goal percentage in the league. The Dubs’ peers amid the NBA’s offensive elite are the NBA’s elite.
And yet the Warriors are anything but elite this season.
The Warriors’ issue is two-fold, and it’s hardly game theory or advanced X’s and O’s.
You likely already know it: This team does not play a lick of defense, and it turns the ball over far too often.
That’s the hallmark of a lottery team, not a team defending its championship.
That’s the key word: defending.
It’s jarring how far the Warriors’ defense has fallen. Last season, the Dubs had the second-best defensive rating in the NBA, just behind their eventual NBA Finals opponents, the Celtics.
Now, they’re allowing the fourth-most points per game, hanging out with the Hornets, Pistons, and Rockets at the bottom of the stat sheet.
While this Warriors’ roster has changed yearto-year, the drop-off on defense should not be this
precipitous. Donte DiVincenzo is a rock-solid perimeter defender. Jordan Poole is still a sub-par defender, but that’s an improvement from last season. Klay Thompson is moving well. Andrew Wiggins has played in nearly two-thirds of the Warriors’ games. Kevon Looney is still a Warrior.
So what’s happening here? Why are the Warriors now fouling at the secondworst rate in the NBA?
Gary Payton was an 18-minute-per-game player last year. Surely his absence and that of Otto Porter aren’t behind the defensive decline.
Draymond Green said the Warriors lack will on defense, but also trust. I say those two things are interconnected, and they’re connected to Green.
It’s hard to do the right thing when trust is absent. And when it comes to the Warriors’ lack of trust on the defensive end of the floor, Green has to look himself in the mirror.
He sets the tone for the team, and the tone he set at the beginning of the season with his punch of Poole won’t soon be forgotten. That was this 2022-23 team’s foundation of trust.
On top of that, Green’s play has undulated this season. It often seems tied to the quality of opponent, too. He needs to treat the Warriors’ final 24 games as if each is against the Grizzlies or Celtics.
But that’s not the Warriors’ only issue. At the same time, Golden State is turning the ball over far too often.
Golden State has the second-worst turnover rate in the NBA — 15.8 percent of possessions end in one. Even the best defensive teams allow more than a point per possession against transition. It’s a guaranteed way to give up points in bunches.
If the Warriors play better defense, the turnovers won’t be as much of an issue. If they stop turning the ball over, defense will be easier.
Like trust and will, these things are tied together.
But it does not matter what comes first — the defense or the ball control. Something has to change if the Warriors want to play in May, much less June.
And while they might have 24 games remaining on the schedule, they will need to change things quite a bit sooner than that.