The New Look Warriors
Early returns on the newest (and youngest) Warriors are promising.
Jared Dubin has a good breakdown of how the Denver Nuggets (partially) slowed Steph Curry down on Wednesday night. He highlights the number of bodies that the Nuggets sent at Steph, with blitzes and hard double teams, and some handsy face guarding by Kentavious Calwell-Pope. They were determined to make the other Warriors beat them. Their strategy paid off at times; for instance, Dario Saric missed on a couple of open three when the Nuggets had his defender stay at the level of the screen and then move into a soft double team:
Journey back to May 10, 2019, when the Golden State Warriors notched my favorite win of the dynasty, closing out the Houston Rockets on the road in Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals. Steph Curry had 0 points at halftime of a tied game (he would finish with 33.) Often forgotten is that Andre Iguodala, a shaky outside shooter, went 5/8 from beyond the arc. This should look familiar:
The accuracy from three of non-Steph/non-Klay Thompson Warriors has been a bellwether of team success during the dynasty years.1 Think Gary Payton II hitting the dagger 3 in Game 5 of the 2022 Denver Nuggets series, or Andrew Wiggins and Otto Porter Jr. combining to shoot 6/12 in Game 6 of the 2022 finals. Opposing teams have been successful showing bodies at Steph when those other Warriors have been reluctant to take, or incapable of making, open shots. The infamous zenith came when Nick Nurse’s Toronto Raptors threw a box-and-one at Steph in the 2019 Finals.
Through Friday morning, Dario Saric was shooting 15% on open threes after making 39% of those shots last season, per NBA Advances Stats.2 The Warriors as a team are bottom of the league on those shots, making just 26%, one season after being second in the league in that category at 38%. Saric and the the rest of the non-Steph Warriors will find their stroke and history suggests that the Nuggets’ strategy won’t always be so successful.
Beyond Saric, early returns on the new Warriors have been encouraging. That the Warriors have always struggled in the non-Steph minutes is well known. Through nine games and 278 possessions this season, non-Steph lineups are outscoring opponents by 10 points per 100 possessions on average, per Cleaning the Glass. All-bench lineups are +4.1/100 over 157 possessions.3 This is untrodden and welcome territory. The sample size is small, but not entirely meaningless. The bench defense has been especially robust, with a 108.7 rating that would rank in the league’s top ten. It isn’t just a case of fluky bad opponent shooting either; opponents have been scorching from the mid-range and an okay-but-far-from-terrible 35% from three, all per Cleaning the Glass.4
Of special note is how much Golden State’s defense has held up even when rookies Trayce Jackson-Davis and Brandin Podziemski are on the floor. Lineups featuring one or both of them have benefited from cold opponent shooting, but the eye test suggests that they are also pressing the right buttons. Jackson-Davis in particular has shown admirable defensive commitment and discipline. Staying in front of a jitterbug guard like Darius Garland is a difficult assignment for even the most capable switch bigs. Jackson-Davis’ footwork and mobility is on full display here even though Garland attacks him off a runway, and Jackson-Davis comes away with a block:
Watch Jackson-Davis for the entirety of the clip below, as he locks in on first denying Tristan Thompson a seal, and then boxing Thompson (a rowdy offensive rebounder) off the glass.
Jackson-Davis’ contribution there won’t show up in the box score, but much like Brook Lopez and Steven Adams using their box outs to secure their team defensive rebounds, he is integral to Golden State rebounding Garland’s miss.
Golden State’s all-bench lineups have a promising connectivity on defense. Watch below as Jonathan Kuminga denies Garland the use of a Thompson screen and hounds him away from the action, even as Moses Moody and Saric execute a smooth off-ball switch. Moody then goes from a drop into a late switch and forces Caris LeVert to drive into a maze of arms, allowing Jackson-Davis to come away with the steal.
While Moody and Kuminga are now in their third year with the Warriors, both are being expected to take on bigger roles. As with their new teammates, the evidence so far is positive. Golden State has been running Kuminga post-ups, with Moody on the strong side wing and the other three Warriors cleared out to the weak side. The Warriors are scoring 1.05 points per possession on Kuminga post ups so far this season. Moody has proven a capable enough marksman that defenders have to think twice when choosing whether to bring the strong side help over to double Kuminga.
Watch here as Chris Paul calls Moody over to the strong side; as soon as the double comes, Kuminga passes to the open Moody for a triple.
(Ignore the fact that Moody banked the shot in; the process was good!)
Moody is showing the feel and ability to read the game that makes players successful in Steve Kerr’s system. On the subsequent play from the clip above, Moody found himself on the weak side wing during a Kuminga post up. With the double not coming off of Podziemski on the strong side wing, Moody cuts into the lane, leveraging the space opened up by Golden State’s five-out alignment for an easy bucket.
I have enjoyed watching the newer Warriors simultaneously fit in with Golden State’s pet actions, while also introducing some new flair. Here, Chris Paul plays the Draymond role and finds Steph for a three out of Golden State’s patented Gaggle set:
(Joe Viray has an explanation and breakdown of the Gaggle split action here. It essentially takes the Warriors’ typical split action and adds another player, with a player curling towards the rim off a screen, before the screener flares off of a second screen. In the clip above, Steph is the first screener, Klay curls, and then Steph flares off of Looney’s screen.)
Or how about Brandin Podziemski springing free towards the rim out of some down curl action when two defenders go with Wiggins (an action the Warriors have run in the past with Klay in Wiggins’ role):
On the new flair, I was excited to see Golden State try out some Spain pick and roll in their game against New Orleans. As a reminder, Spain or Stack pick and rolls are a screen-the-screener action involving a shooter back screening for a roller, before popping out. When run right, it can cause even the best defenses all kinds of headaches. Golden State tried it with Chris Paul as the ball handler, Jackson-Davis as the roller/ball screener, and Podziemski as the back screener:
The timing of the action wasn’t perfect (something that will improve with more reps), but it still managed to produce an open Chris Paul three out of a scrambling defense. I hope to see more of this in games to come.
During the Warriors’ record 73 win season, Draymond Green shot 39% from three. His accuracy has hovered closer to 30% since then.
Open shots are defined as shots with the nearest defender being 4-6 feet away.
Lineups that do not include any of the five starters (Steph, Klay, Kevon Looney, Wiggins, and Draymond.)
Speaking of fluky shooting: Opponents are shooting a wildfire-sparking 56% on threes against the Warriors’ starters. That’s basically the worst mark amongst all league lineups, for a stat that is largely stochastic. I’m not quite ready to sound the alarm on last season’s best starting unit, even as they have struggled more this season (although I wouldn’t mind seeing Andrew Wiggins return to 2022 form soon.)