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The Golden State Warriors have played more ugly than beautiful basketball this year.
There was no silver lining to his opening night loss to the Brooklyn Nets, nor to his Christmas Day debacle against the Milwaukee Bucks.
They needed three game winners to knock out the lowly Chicago Bulls, and they lost at halftime Tuesday to the Detroit Pistons without a win.
But while the process hasn’t always looked good, the Warriors are right where we all expected them to be after the four-game road trip: .500.
Steve Kerr was pleased with the achievement and said after Tuesday’s 116-106 win that “we turned a road trip into a good one.”
Is not wrong. Even if you have to squint to see the first week’s execution as anything less than terrible, the Warriors started showing the vision on Tuesday. Flashes of how and why they can be good this year shone.
After three games of treating Steph Curry like Patrick Beverley, the Warriors role-players began searching for their MVP. Andrew Wiggins had a phenomenal screen off the ball to free Curry for a 3-pointer, and you could see both the excitement and relief on Curry’s face as the ball went through the rim. After the game, Kerr said, “I think we all really enjoyed ourselves,” before admitting that he had been trying to force those complex actions on the team too quickly.
Wiggins also passed the ball to Curry more directly and said it’s the highest priority because, “Once he gets going, you know the rest.”
But Wiggins was more than a player tasked with getting Curry the stone. The former first pick had his best game in a Warriors jersey, with 27 points on 9 of 19 shooting (including 5 of 8 from deep), 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks and 1 steal. Most important was his ability to lead the second unit when Curry was on the bench, which could be the biggest key to the Warriors’ success this year.
Golden State outscored Detroit by 19 points in Wiggins’ minutes (compared to just three in Curry’s), and their 17-point fourth quarter was the pivotal performance in the game, as the Dubs extended a one-point lead. after three quarters on a double digit pad.
Kelly Oubre Jr. continued to be a plague on defense (and made a few shots!), Prompting minds to wonder what this defense will look like when Draymond Green returns.
James Wiseman showed that he can turn defense into offense on his own; Given that the Warriors absolutely need stops leading into transitional stages this year, that will prove to be of great value, even if it won’t always be as pretty and emphatic.
The Warriors need to improve and quickly. But Steve Kerr remains confident that the team will be quite good, and he is not the type to venture much into false optimism (or at least to convince false optimism). Curry praised the team’s growing chemistry, two days after Damion Lee spoke about how well everyone is getting along off the court. Eric Paschall said, “We had fun there,” before pointing out that it was the most important element of the game.
Again: you can see the vision. Curry, who had his first real game from Curry, shooting 5 of 9 from deep on the road to 31 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals, may be a candidate for MVP. Wiggins may never be a great team’s first or second choice, but he can be a high-octane winger leading a quality second unit. Oubre and Green can anchor a strong defense. Wiseman may turn into … honestly, who knows, but we’re delighted to find out.
Will they be alright soon? TBD. But you can see how it would happen.
That was not shown a few days ago.
