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It’s 36 seconds after the prediction when James Wiseman takes the Warriors’ first shot. It’s missing. Kelly Oubre Jr. takes the second shot. Misses. Andrew Wiggins takes the third. Misses. Draymond Green takes the fourth. Another miss.
The game is barely two minutes old, the Warriors are behind Utah 14-0 and coach Steve Kerr wants a time out.
Out of the timeout Oubre gets an open look and takes his second hit, which enters. He misses his third shot. Wiggins misses his second shot. Oubre is missing a fourth. And a fifth.
The score: Jazz 19, Warriors 2.
It’s almost five minutes into the game, with the Warriors missing eight of their first nine shots, that their leading scorer and No. 3 in the NBA takes his first shot. Steph Curry’s 26-foot 3-pointer falls through the net.
Next possession, exactly 30 seconds later, Curry takes the next shot, this one from 29 feet. Splash. Golden State’s shooting sleep is over. The offense is awakened and active. The Warriors perform nine of their next 11 hits.
Curry scores a high of 24 points. He overtakes the Hall of Famer Reggie Miller and moves to second place on the NBA roster by most 3 points in a career. Curry is however unable to save the Warriors from themselves.
Plus, they’re behind 17 when asked to join in on the action. This is one of the times when it seems his teammates, usually exempt Green, forget he’s on the ground.
How can we understand this?
“We have things to figure out, obviously,” Curry said after the 127-108 loss. “I don’t have the answers yet.”
Curry’s usage rate when playing with starters, according to ESPN analysis, is 22.0%. This is more typical of a third option. It’s appalling for the player’s former teammate Kevin Durant described as the most important player on the pitch during the glory years: “Steph is the offense. The offense is Steph.
KD is right. Or he once was.
“We see all the numbers and all the combinations and there are a lot of theories we could talk about,” Kerr said. “But I’m going to leave that up to (media) to assess and understand. We talk about everything internally, as a coach, and we are well aware of which combinations work and which don’t. We are well aware of Steph’s utilization rate. “
Still, it’s not uncommon for Curry, the designated point guard, to have two or three possessions without the ball.
Or four or five without a blow. Saturday night is the last example. He spent the first five minutes of the game as a lure, driving Utah defenders away from teammates who weren’t able to exploit the openings he had created.
“The most disappointing aspect of this game and the last game is the number of times we haven’t moved the ball across the floor,” Kerr said. “We’re attacking a fence, one or two dribbles, or maybe we’re in our attack and we turn the corner and everyone is looking to shoot. The ball must move. We’ve always preached the ball motion here.
“We have to understand that, especially when you play against Mitchell Robinson and Rudy Gobert, you have to look to get the ball rolling. You cannot continue to attack the shot blocker or shoot up for mid-range shots. It has to be drive-and-kick. That’s the name of the game. ”
It’s a delicate balance right now. Kerr and his team want non-Curry players to shoot when they’re open because that’s how Curry’s gravitational pull is supposed to work. They are open. But seeing everyone but Curry hoist 3 balls while running so often is counterproductive.
As seen in the first few minutes on Saturday night.
RELATED: Miller Crashes Steph’s Zoom to Offer Congratulations on 3 Point Mark
Curry is, of course, polite about the state of the offense. He points out that there have been games where the ball moved as expected and everyone in the starting lineup benefited. He blames poor overall defense for the static offense of the last two games, the two losses.
“One side of the floor always dictates what happens on the other side,” he said. “Usually if you get saves and you make the switch the defense is on their heels. And that’s where the ball starts to jump. But it’s when defense is established with every possession and they feel good and their energy is at peak, it impacts how we play offensively.
Leave it to Draymond to recognize that the Warriors – offensive and defensive – are rapidly approaching an intersection.
“We have to find an identity,” he says. “Sometimes we move the ball, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we defend, sometimes we don’t. We just need to establish an identity of the type of team we’re going to be.
“Are we going to be a ball movement team?” Or are we going to be an ISO team? “
Kerr, as he noted, is definitely a supporter of moving the ball. Warriors at their best move the ball.
However, there are too many instances where they seem to forget to move the ball to Curry almost always generates production.
As the Warriors go through the next few weeks, they will discover something about themselves. When Curry is on the ball, he shakes things up. When he’s off the ball, he also shakes things up.
Buckle up, guys. We’re about to see how determined Kerr is to stay with this starting lineup and go through the many tough and ugly stages in the hopes of seeing him come together.
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