Maybe We Shouldn’t Just Brush off the Latest Warriors Loss
As many NBA fans saw Friday night, the Warriors lost a regular season game to the Memphis Grizzlies in which they had a 19 point lead heading into the fourth quarter. The Grizz trailed by 24 at one point in the third quarter, and the overtime victory for Memphis was the biggest comeback win of the 2016–17 season so far. No team had blown a 19-point lead heading into the fourth quarter since 2009, and while the Warriors are still 31–6 (the best record in the NBA), all signs may not be great.
Let’s get this out of the way early: This is clearly a bit of grandstanding. The Warriors will almost certainly make it back to the NBA Finals this season, and are the odds-on favorites to win once they get there. They have four of the best 20 players in the league, and arguably three of the top ten. They have maybe the best coach in the league (non-Greg Popovich Division), and their home-court advantage is still, despite Friday’s night game, among the best in the sport. This is the moral equivalent of looking at the Mona Lisa and pointing out a missed brushstroke. We’re looking pretty hard for flaws here, but that’s half the fun with a team this super.
The storyline that has been making waves around the league in the wake of Friday’s game is the reaction that Draymond Green had when Kevin Durant demanded the ball from Stephen Curry and shot an isolation three late in the fourth quarter. As soon as Curry gave up the ball, Green was demonstrably upset, and when Durant missed, his mood certainly didn’t improve. The Warriors were subsequently outscored 17–8 in overtime, taking their sixth loss of the season.
After the game, the Warriors players and coaches said all the right things (Draymond saying he was “thrilled by the loss” because it would help them fix some things; Kerr saying it was normal teammate interaction; Durant just noting what Green said), but I think there may be a bit more to it.
In researching a different article, I came upon an interesting statistical nugget. Among 15 of the top players in the NBA (players like LeBron, Boogie Cousins, Chris Paul, Paul George etc.), Kevin Durant had by far the most paltry assist rate in “clutch situations.” Clutch situations, as defined by NBA.com, are moments in games when the game is within five or fewer points in the final five minutes. Durant was also the only player among the 15 to have a lower usage rate in those “clutch situations” than during the normal course of play. Now with the caveat that the sample size is still small in the 2016–17, those numbers seem to suggest that Durant is not getting the ball as much he wants in crunch time, so when he does get the ball, he’s bound and determined to shoot the ball instead of passing it.
Now in a vacuum, that’s not the worst thing. Durant shooting the ball, even in isolation, is a pretty good option. That being said, ball movement is almost always better than a dribble, dribble, dribble, pull-up into a contested jumper action. And if Durant is feeling slighted within the late-game Warriors offense, that’s obviously troubling.
Interestingly enough, the article in which the “clutch situation” statistics came from isn’t even out yet. However, within the article I noted that it “looks a bit like KD isn’t getting the ball as much as he likes down the stretch, so when he does get the rock, he’s not giving it up.” Sound familiar? I went on to say that the situation was “something that deserves to be watched in the Warriors close games this season.” Lo and behold, the very night I wrote that paragraph (even a broken clock is right twice a day, right?), the Green-Durant exchange laid out above occurred. Now I still don’t think things are rotten enough in Denmark to rise any real suspicion, but can’t you just kind of picture this scenario rearing its ugly head at the worst possible situation? Like Game 7 of the Warriors-Cavaliers trilogy? Something to watch.
