The defending champions entered the All Star break statistically and spiritually mediocre.
The Warriors are 29-29, never going above or below .500 by more than three games throughout the first four months of the season. That’s good for the ninth seed in an equally mediocre Western Conference. Continue at this pace and they’ll be competing for a chance at the play-in game. This is not the kind of season the reigning championship team envisioned.
It’s not all bad, though. They’re a win streak and a conference foe’s losing streak away from erasing a 2.5-game gap between a play-in seed and a fifth or fourth seed.
But they can’t bet on other teams’ failures to fuel their own success. Plus, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving’s relocation to the Suns and Mavericks, respectively, make the chance of a higher seed even less likely.
The final 24 games of the regular season provide an opportunity to leap into the Western Conferences’ upper echelon. But how? Here’s a look at three keys to the regular season.
The schedule and Steph Curry’s return
Golden State only plays three Eastern Conference teams in their remaining 24 games, which means plenty of opportunity to gain ground and establish themselves against their Western Conference competitors.
They open up against the Los Angeles Lakers on the road on Feb. 23 — who look much stronger now with Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley and D’Angelo Russell — and play five West teams at home, including flailing teams such as the Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers, along with contenders such as the Los Angeles Clippers, Minnesota Timberwolves and New Orleans Pelicans.
Curry is set to be re-evaluated for his left leg sprain after the All-Star break, and we already know he won’t play on Feb. 23 against the Lakers. But the Warriors’ success over these final games could be determined by his return. Muddying the Curry return is that his injury is rare in athletes; the two lower-leg ligaments he partially tore have no predictable healing timeline, according to the team.
But Curry is the star around which the Warriors system orbits. His return, sooner rather than later, would dramatically increase any chance of them skyrocketing up the standings.
Andrew Wiggins and the defensive consistency
Wiggins’ breakout playoff performance last season translated seamlessly into his start of this regular season. But he largely disappeared upon his return from an adductor injury and illnesses that sidelined for a career-high 15 games — plus a few more here and there as he dealt with more illnesses.
There’s a distinct difference between pre- and post-injury Wiggins. He shot 45% from 3 with 5.2 rebounds per game in 22 games before his adductor injury and 29% from 3 with 4.9 rebounds per game in 15 games after his return.
Wiggins said he felt like he was finding his rhythm again after a 29-point, seven-rebound game against the Washington Wizards on Feb. 13 — a game in which he was a team-high plus-25. Having Wiggins in rhythm may be just what this low-energy Warriors defense needs.
The Warriors’ lack of intensity and engagement defensively is one of the most glaring differences between this year’s team and last, as Draymond Green put it after their loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. Their foul trouble, tendency to overhelp and miss rotations, and porous shell defense paves layup lines for opposing offenses.
“It has to come from within,” Green told reporters. “Defense is all about will, a want to defend. Defense isn’t fun. You’ve just got to do it if you want to win, and we haven’t. It’s the will to defend — stop and guard your man, and sink, and drop the box and rotate. Defense is just one or two steps extra … that’s all will, and we don’t have that as a team.”
Lack of defensive will isn’t all on Wiggins, of course. But he’s a key piece to a defensive machine that distinguished the Warriors from their competitors last season as the No. 1 ranked defense in the Western Conference.
The return of Gary Payton II (eventually …), a healthy Wiggins, the emergence Jonathan Kuminga, a sturdier Klay Thompson with Green as the central nervous system could help the Warriors find the will to defend to a championship level again. If they can defend again, they may be unstoppable.
Jonathan Kuminga
A handful of winnable games this season have been blown with scoring droughts and defensive lapses in the final seconds of games. While Curry and Payton are out, the Warriors need to rely on their depth a bit more in order to ensure that Green and Kevon Looney are on the court together in crunch time.
Kuminga has been a regular part of the rotation lately, but perhaps the Warriors can really explore their rotation depth by playing the 20-year-old for 20 minutes per game consistently. He’s shown an ability to impact the game defensively at the expense of a few costly mistakes that get him pulled. But Kuminga has the athleticism to give the Warriors a spark they desperately need.
