Shooting Prevents Warriors From Playing Complete Game As They Fall to Blazers
One of the problems that comes with the territory of bad teams is the difficulty of doing everything right. Teams struggling to win games, such as the current Golden State Warriors, can’t afford to struggle in stat categories if they expect to pull out wins. Teams that win a lot, such as the Golden State Warriors of the past few seasons, can afford to have a bad night in one or two categories (for example, turnovers) and still rely on pure talent to get victories. But these Warriors can’t, and we saw why during their 122-112 road loss to the Portland Trail Blazers as they dropped their fifth straight game and fell to 5-24 on the season.
The Warriors actually did most things on the court very well. They did some of their best three-point shooting of the entire season with 16 makes at a 42.1% clip. Although they’ve been the league’s worst team at defending beyond the arc this year, they managed to hold the Blazers to just 29% on threes. They crashed the glass repeatedly, turning in second and third efforts and following up on misses for a total of 17 offensive rebounds. They moved the ball well, taking smart shots, making extra passes and finding the open man en route to 24 assists. And they played smart, committing just eight turnovers. Although the Blazers led most of the way, the Warriors were able to stay close the entire time and any Blazer runs didn’t last very long.
“I think we’re just competing. That’s really the biggest thing,” Marquese Chriss said after the game. “There were some games earlier in the season where we just let it get away from us and then we try to fight our way back and you can’t play uphill the whole game. So I think [the key is] just managing the game.”
But ultimately, the Warriors needed to be a little better shooting the ball and it proved to be their downfall. Outside of the three-point shooting, nothing else was working. They only shot 38.5% on two-pointers and 60.9% from the free-throw line. Both of these numbers doomed the Warriors, who entered the game shooting roughly 48% on twos and 81.4% on free throws. Had they shot at their normal rates while taking the same number of twos (65) and foul shots (23) that they took on Wednesday night, they would have scored 128 points in a game where they allowed 122. But they underachieved shooting the ball and didn’t reach the mark they should have.
That free-throw number is particularly infuriating. The Warriors have led the league in free-throw percentage for most of the season and entered the game as the NBA’s second-best team from the charity stripe. It’s one of the only things they can be counted on to do consistently well this season. For this team to have a rough free-throw shooting night is inevitable, but surprising. For it to happen in a game they very much could have won must be especially annoying for the players.
Ultimately, the Blazers just hit a few more shots, especially down the stretch, and came away with the win. The Warriors’ inability to win the crunch-time minutes has been a major factor in their inability to win games.
“It’s tough, you know, knowing what needs to be done and we’re not quite doing it,” Draymond Green said.
“As we start to get guys back, as we continue to kind of build each of our roles, I think it’s going to be important down the stretch just to [get] good shots,” Glenn Robinson III added. “I thought the last five minutes, there was a couple possessions where we didn’t get a play called or we didn’t get settled down enough to get a good shot. But I think those things are just feel and it’ll keep coming.”
The Warriors are showing signs of improvement. They’re making smarter decisions on the court and look overmatched less often. But they aren’t doing enough yet to turn that improvement into wins, and we may go well into the season before we hit a point where that is happening.