The Opening Night Loss Reveals Warriors are Still Looking for Chemistry
The opening night for the Golden State Warriors was not exactly as expected. The San Antonio Spurs played a solid game leading from the beginning, and won 129-100.
The Golden State Warriors showed only at certain times (very few, to be honest) all of their offensive potential on opening night against the San Antonio Spurs, but generally they were in a struggle. The road to a fix for head coach Steve Kerr is still long, and it would be difficult to expect the Warriors to play as a fluid offense immediately. As with the Miami Heat and LeBron James in 2010, there needs to be time to get to know each other as players and find the chemistry.
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After the loss against San Antonio, the most important thing is to find an alternative rim protector, as Andrew Bogut and Festus Ezeli both left in free agency.
The Australian center, gone to Dallas during the offseason, leaves a serious deficiency, and his absence shows how much work he did in Kerr’s system. The offensive rebounds were 21-8 in favor of San Antonio, turned into 26 second-chance points.
Another element in the opening loss are the points from the bench. Without Leandro Barbosa and Ezeli, Warriors’ bench players scored only 16 points, compared to the Spurs’ 54.
Something did not click for the starters as well, with a lot of difference-making players going through struggles.
There were too many turnovers, forced by the Spurs’ pressure, that allowed easy points in transition for San Antonio. The last 40 seconds of the third quarter were particularly striking, when Golden State struggled to even cross mid-court. These mistakes came from players that don’t usually make them, and they will surely will be resolved over time.
"“That’s 20 times we didn’t get out on the break. And that takes away, from this team, at least 30 points.” – Draymond Green"
Another player who struggled during the opening night was Klay Thompson. The schemes defined for him usually allow him to shoot after a double screen. Instead, during this game, Thompson missed it often, finishing 5-16 from the field and 1-6 from three. Sometimes it was a matter of aim and sometimes it was caused by an inaccurate pass or screens that were out of sync.
However, for Thompson it was a bad night not only because of the shots, but also because of the rebounds. In fact, Aldridge bulldozed right through him into premium putback position, with little help from his teammates. While Curry is considered an above-average rebounder for a point guard, Thompson is considered below average for a shooting guard.
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Obviously, we must not be hasty and come to a negative conclusion only after opening night. It is a long season and there is a lot of pressure on this team.
It was predictable that this team would meet these problems, and there is no need to panic after just a loss. Kerr has too much experience to not know what this team needs, and how to get there. The only important thing now is to act and definitively solve the problems for this promising team.