Draymond Green tweaked his ankle late in the second quarter, and from the moment he began that light limp up the court, it made sense to pull him. The Warriors were down by 27 points when he twisted it and 29 at the half. They’ve had some big comebacks this season, including a 19-point stunner on the Lakers in Staples Center, but they had more juice that January night.
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This looked more like the Warriors from the opening week — fouling everything that moved, bricking open 3s, failing to deal well with physicality, outclassed and waving the white flag early in an end-to-end blowout. The final: 117-91 Lakers. The only positives to arise for the Warriors: Curry was able to rest the entire fourth quarter, and Green’s ankle sprain “wasn’t too bad,” coach Steve Kerr said.
“This was very, very surprising for me,” Kerr said. “But I’ve been in the league long enough to know there are a handful of games every year that are inexplicable. This is one you don’t spend too much time on.”
Kerr identified two concerning statistics. First: The Warriors turned it over 20 times. That’s now 60 total in the past three games for a team that averages only 14.9 per game.
“We’ve been a good team overall this year in terms of turnovers,” Kerr said. “So the message is we need to start taking care of the ball again.”
The foul total was the other highlighted stat. The Warriors committed 16 first-half fouls and 25 total. They’d limited their hacking recently, shaving enough personal fouls to rise from the NBA’s most foul-happy team to only fourth-most, sliding under 22 fouls per game. It’s a large reason they’ve climbed the defensive rankings. But against a bruising, powerful, motivated Lakers team, they relapsed.
“There’s no way we can go back to being a high-foul team and expect to be any good,” Kerr said. “We need to clean that up before the Portland game.”
Kerr is generally correct. That’s a flush-it game. Beating Portland and/or Phoenix in the Wednesday/Thursday back-to-back is more important. They’ll be battling the Blazers and Suns for second-half playoff seeding. Split it, feel decent heading into the break. Sweep it, feel terrific. Get swept and it’ll be a whole lot more impactful than this Lakers blowout.
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But something did catch my eye in the Lakers loss. The Warriors offense has had increasing success the past few weeks with the off-ball action, leveraging the Steph Curry attention into slip-cut dunks, back-screen layups and basically just a buffet of open cutters for Green, who leads the NBA in February assists. The Warriors lead the NBA in assists overall.
But a large chunk of that success has been against the league’s younger, worse teams. They cooked the Cavaliers and Hornets in Chase Center with all that misdirection and off-ball movement. Defenders such as Collin Sexton, LaMelo Ball and P.J. Washington just weren’t ready for it.
Veterans are better prepared. They identify patterns more easily on film. They’ve played against Curry and Green more often. Everything becomes more difficult against them, and the Warriors’ offensive flow can be thrown off-tilt early.
LeBron James read two off-ball actions perfectly in the first half. Against Charlotte, Cleveland or many of the mediocre teams the Warriors have had success against recently, these plays are easy catches and relatively uncontested buckets. Against LeBron, they’re live-ball steals going the other direction.
The first came in the first minute. LeBron switches onto Curry as he curls around a Kelly Oubre Jr. screen and breaks up the Green pass.
The second: LeBron initially helps on James Wiseman as Green barrels downhill and draws Montrezl Harrell. That’s the proper rotation, to cut off the lob outlet for Green. He’s been recognizing that lately and, as a counter, occasionally hitting a cutting Oubre as the next read in his progression. LeBron baits him into the pass and jumps it for the pick-six.
You don’t leave this game surprised to discover the Warriors aren’t in the same tier as the Lakers. You knew that. But the sharp defensive performance from Los Angeles was a reminder of how difficult a playoff series against the league’s elite will be for this limited Warriors offense without Klay Thompson.
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“LeBron is a genius defensively; he can play center field and he knows what’s coming,” Kerr said. “They did a good job of being physical. We didn’t get the ball into the paint at all, and it sort of took us out of everything we normally do.”
Veteran teams with veteran coaching staffs like the Lakers and Clippers will scout hard, prepare well, be physical off the ball and try to cut off the leaks. The Warriors can and will create a bunch of easy buckets and win a bunch of regular-season games against young defenders who have under-scouted them and are overwhelmed by the marathon schedule.
But the sledding becomes a whole lot harder against veterans, and the challenge ratchets up four levels come playoff time.
“A little bit harder,” Curry said. “But it’s still part of the level of execution we can get to. It might be too simple, I keep saying it, but that first quarter, everything was just at their pace. We couldn’t get any stops. We were either taking the ball out of the basket or inbounding it off a free throw. They understand our sets, so if they have time to prepare, they’re much more likely to be in the right place and take us out of our stuff. But we still feel like we can run our offense, execute and beat even the best teams with it.”
But generating playoff offense against the league’s smartest defenders is a challenge the Warriors must first meet to even have a chance to answer. The climb continues in Portland and Phoenix on Wednesday and Thursday. In advance, the Warriors are taking Monday off in Los Angeles before a longer Tuesday practice, which has been a rarity in this condensed, protocol-filled NBA world.
(Photo of James Wiseman, Stephen Curry and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / USA Today)
Anthony Slater is a senior writer covering the Golden State Warriors for The Athletic. He's covered the NBA for a decade. Previously, he reported on the Oklahoma City Thunder for The Oklahoman. Follow Anthony on Twitter @anthonyVslater
