Golden State Warriors Perfectly Positioned to Take Pole Position in West
It's an unfamiliar knock to the Bay Area, but one Golden State Warriors fans know they have been waiting to hear.
The opportunity to scale the vaunted Western Conference ladder has started rapping on the franchise's door. Despite having made consecutive playoff trips the past two years, the 2014-15 campaign is the team's first true shot at conference supremacy.
Internal Improvements
With all-world defenders littering the roster and first-year coach Steve Kerr having tapped into their massive offensive potential, the Warriors have begun bearing the marks of an elite two-way force. Owners of the NBA's fourth-highest scoring average (105.7 points per game) and its second-stingiest defense (90.3 points against), Golden State has unleashed an electric band of basketball that is packed with promise.
"The NBA's best backcourt...pairs beautifully with the league's best defense (87.5 points allowed per 100 possessions), forming a concert of mesmerizing basketball that's as fun as it is effective," wrote Sports Illustrated's Matt Dollinger.
Amid the organization's first 3-0 start in 20 years, the Warriors have outscored their opponents by an astounding 15.5 points per 100 possessions. Beyond the Houston Rockets (plus-15.2), no other team is within five points of Golden State's net rating.
There might be a temptation to dismiss Golden State's early-season success as a gift from the league's schedule-makers. After all, the team's second game of the year was a 23-point thrashing of the depleted, winless Los Angeles Lakers.
But consider the other two games on the docket. The Warriors' season-opening win over the Sacramento Kings may not have impressed at the time, but the Kings have since scored victories against the Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets—the latter two having come on the road in hostile environments.
Golden State also stopped the Portland Trail Blazers, the league's fourth-highest scoring team last season, with a 95-90 win Sunday. The game was the Warriors' second in as many nights, yet they reached deep enough into their reserve fuel tanks to score the final seven points of the contest and escape the Moda Center with a victory.
Yet, the results alone are not the biggest reasons for optimism. Rather, it's the manner in which this team has gone about protecting one of the four unblemished records left in this league.
The Warriors are winning with defense. Not only are they tops in terms of efficiency, they have also forced the most turnovers in the league (22.7 a night).
Even offensive superstar Stephen Curry has shown a strong commitment to playing both ends of the floor.
"He's really been hawking people up there, and it's good to see that because that's how people try to do him," Draymond Green said of Curry, per Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group. "When you give people a taste of their own blood, they're really not expecting it. They don't know him as a great defender, and he's gotten so much better."
Golden State's defense is elite, but it's their offense that has turned the most heads. While not overly effective at the moment (103.0 points per 100 possessions, 15th), the groundwork being laid by Kerr and his staff has hinted at some wildly productive, incredibly efficient days ahead in the not-so-distant future.
Antonio Gonzalez of The Associated Press explained:
"One of the most recognizable changes the Warriors have made under Kerr is an offense that has more ball movement, breaking away from the isolation-heavy system Jackson used the past three years.
Kerr's style has flavors of the triangle offense from his days playing for Phil Jackson in Chicago, the pace-and-space attack of mentor Gregg Popovich in San Antonio and the up-tempo schemes assistant coach Alvin Gentry employed during their time together in Phoenix.
The defense, which was among the best in the NBA under Mark Jackson, has remained stout — and the all-around game has given Golden State positive results.
"
While it has somewhat sputtered out of the gate, this offense has already yielded some encouraging returns.
Chief among them has been the play of the recently maxed-out Klay Thompson. The 24-year-old has poured in a league-best 29.7 points per game while compiling an absurd .537/.455/.913 shooting slash. He has also flashed the explosiveness and creativity needed to consistently wreak havoc at the basket.
Thompson has lived in the areas where the analytical crowd says every scorer should: behind the three-point line and right at the rim. Nearly 41 percent of his field-goal attempts have been threes, and another 22.2 percent have come within three feet of the basket.
Thanks to that newfound aggressiveness, he has averaged a career-high 7.7 free-throw attempts per game. His previous personal best was 2.3.
Bolstered by his offensive improvements and continued defensive tenacity, Thompson took home the season's first Western Conference Player of the Week award, per Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today:
"Thompson, whose offensive evolution from dead-eye shooter to versatile scorer has been so impressive, is clearly ready to take another step forward," wrote USA Today's Sam Amick.
This entire offense feels ready to erupt at any minute.
It flows much better than it did last season. The Dubs have already seen more than a four-point jump in assist percentage (63.5, up from 59.1). And a lot of their weapons have yet to ignite.
Curry has hit just 42.6 percent of his field goals and only 27.3 percent of his triples. Draymond Green (39.1) and Andre Iguodala (35.0) are trapped below the 40 percent mark. Touted newcomer Shaun Livingston, playing on a minutes restriction following offseason toe surgery, has a grisly 25.0 field-goal percentage to his name.
The potential for offensive growth is both obvious and spectacular. And this has yet to mention former All-Star David Lee, who Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle reported could make his season debut Wednesday, or reserve sniper Brandon Rush, who has been battling back spasms.
The Warriors won 51 games last season. With the same dominant defense, a more potent offense and better balance between the starters and reserves, that win total feels like—barring a catastrophic injury—the basement for this team.
If Golden State can continue climbing toward elite status, it's hard to say if any Western Conference foe will be able to keep pace.
The Competition
The defending champs are a force until proven otherwise, but head coach Gregg Popovich will thin his own regular-season ranks at times to keep his team fresh for the playoffs.
The Spurs are a lock for 50-plus wins (they have had as many in each of the last 15 seasons), but they won't put themselves at risk by chasing the top seed at all costs.
Los Angeles Clippers
With Chris Paul and Blake Griffin running the show and Doc Rivers manning the sidelines, the Clippers will always be a threat.
That being said, they have yet to impress this season. Their 3-1 record includes single-digit wins over the injury-riddled Oklahoma City Thunder, Lakers and Utah Jazz. It also shows a home loss to the same Kings squad the Warriors handled with ease.
For all their talent, the Clippers are very underwhelming at small forward. Starter Matt Barnes boasts a gruesome 6.4 player efficiency rating. And L.A. has been getting torched on the glass (league-worst 44.1 rebounding percentage).
L.A. has time to turn things around, but Paul, per Amick, knows his team is far away from where it needs to be:
Oklahoma City Thunder
The Thunder, down both Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook for the foreseeable future, will have to scrap just to secure a playoff spot. OKC already has four losses on its resume, three of the double-digit variety. And things could get worse before any help is on the way.
The Field
The conference has other challengers, but all of them carry question marks. Will the Houston Rockets miss the depth they sacrificed this summer? Do the Memphis Grizzlies have enough offense to contend for a conference crown? Will the opposite end doom the Dallas Mavericks and Portland Trail Blazers?
A Golden Road to the Top
Golden State has its own issues, to be sure, but none that seem nearly as threatening.
The Warriors need a third scorer, but they might already have one in Lee, who has averaged 18.2 points during his first four seasons in Oakland. They must get Curry's shot going, but history says that's inevitable. They have to find their strongest rotation, but that's more likely to include benching capable players as opposed to overexposing guys in roles they aren't built to handle.
And any concerns about Kerr failing to have the same hold over this locker room as his predecessor, Mark Jackson, may have already been silenced. Kerr knows what he wants, and, more importantly, so do his players.
It's hard to overstate the importance of chemistry, and the right kind seems to be brewing by the Bay under Kerr's watch.
"He's not trying to be something he's not, and he's not going to fake that," assistant Bruce Fraser said of Kerr, per Leung. "He's authentic to his core, and when players realize that a guy's real, and he's in it for them and the whole, then that's a powerful thing."
Powerful enough to give the Warriors the inside track in the crowded race for the West.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com and are current through Tuesday, Nov. 4.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
