NBA: Warriors get blown out by the Bucks.
On Thursday night we got a potential Finals preview that felt like anything but that.
Heading into Thursday’s matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks (27-17), the Golden State Warriors (30-11) were coming off of a tough loss to Ja Morant and the Grizzlies on Tuesday night.
Steph Curry had a 27-point triple double against Memphis, but he’s shooting just 35% from deep over the last 17 games after connecting on 41.2% of his threes in the first 20 of the season. The last four games have been the worst of efficiency from beyond the arc that we’ve seen from Steph, who was a lifetime 43.3% shooter from deep before this season, which is on track to be his worst. He’s making less than half of his twos for the first time since 2013, and even though he’s sixth in the league in points per game he is definitely slumping.
Since I last wrote about it a week ago, Curry has gone 6 of 20 from deep, and had a pretty solid game against Cleveland on Sunday. But it didn’t last, and he was 2 of 9 from deep against the Grizzlies. That said, Steph still knows how to make up for it when he can’t get his shots to fall. His 6.5 free throws per game over the last 10 games is better than any career average including the personal best he set last year. And he’s still crucial to everything that the Warriors try to do on offense.
But he’s also been missing shots at the rim and floaters that it feels like he should be able to put in. That’s what has been weird about this slump, in some ways much more intriguingly than his struggling from long range. And for the most part, a lot of the shots he’s taking at or near the basket sure do look like things that we’ve been watching him make for years now. Curry told The Athletic: “I haven’t (had a worse stretch),” after their loss to Dallas.
We have to think that Steph is probably just going to break out of this streak at some point or another. It’s not so much of an if as a when. The man has never shot below 41% from deep in a full season and has been better than 60% at the rim in each of the last seven seasons. He is one of the most consistently efficient scorers of all time. That’s why we accept all the silly turnovers.
Plus he’s having arguably the best defensive season of his career, and he’s still one of the best players on the planet. If he can get his scoring back up to last year’s league-leading rate or anywhere near it, he’ll be back in the MVP conversation in a heartbeat.
And if anyone is going to be able to compete with the reigning champions this year, a full strength Warriors team seems like as good a bet as any.
Draymond Green is having one of the best seasons of his career, back in peak defensive form and making a legitimate case to be selected for his fourth career All-Star team. Sure, he’s well below the 10+ points per game that he averaged from 2016 to 2018 when he made three consecutive All-Star games, but he’s the conductor of an excellent offense and is the anchor of Golden State’s league-leading defense.
Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole, Kevon Looney, Andre Iguodala, Gary Payton II, and Otto Porter Jr. have all been fantastic. Rookie Jonathan Kuminga has shown incredible potential already, and is probably one of the few guys who could challenge Andrew Wiggins for the most natural athleticism on the team.
And then there’s Klay Thompson, who returned to action with 17 points against Cleveland on Sunday. He looked a little shaky at first, although he still made the first Warriors basket of the game, but as it went on his movement and his offensive play looked more and more like vintage Klay. It’s easy to forget that the man had made five straight All-Star games before missing two and a half years to his injuries.
The hope is that as Klay gets used to playing against NBA level competition, he’ll start making shots like he used to. In his last two full seasons of action, he averaged 20.8 points on 42% shooting from deep and 52% on twos. His ability to get space and either drain a shot behind the arc or drive to the basket were crucial to Golden State’s success in the championship years. I wrote about Klay’s greatest moments and attributes in December before his debut, but the short of it is that his play helps open up all kinds of opportunities for the Warriors to work with.
Golden State was just 12-8 in the second 20 game stretch of the season after shocking everybody by opening the year 18-2. They were obviously never going to set the single-season wins record again, but they were just cruising for those first 20 games. Over the next 20, they never won more than three in a row and came in to Milwaukee having lost three of their last four games. Their losses have come when their offense has failed—they shot 38% from deep in their 30 wins and 29% in their 10 losses. It’s a pretty clear pattern.
So, on Thursday night, the Warriors got to face the reigning champions.
The Bucks started the season 6-8 before rattling off eight wins in a row and 19 of their next 24 games. They came into the Warriors matchup after back-to-back losses to Charlotte, including a narrow four-point loss in the second game that saw Milwaukee get outscored 36-26 in the third quarter to allow the Hornets to take the lead.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is as great as ever, making a serious case for his third MVP award. He’s averaging 28.4 points, 11.4 rebounds, and 6.0 assists while shooting an excellent 74% at the rim. He’s third in the league in scoring behind KD and LeBron, but he’s also sixth in rebounding is actually 21st in assists, and is playing like he’s interested in proving that it wasn’t just a lucky fluke that led to Milwaukee’s first NBA title in 50 years.
Over the last eight games the Greek Freak has averaged nearly 33 points per game, partially due to the absence of star point guard Jrue Holiday in the last three contests. Holiday and Khris Middleton, plus the incredibly reliable and underpaid Bobby Portis, have helped the Bucks stay in the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference.
And that’s pretty impressive given that the Bucks big three have only played 300 minutes together—for comparison, Steph, Draymond, and Wiggins have played more than 600 minutes together. With their preferred starting lineup of Giannis, Holiday, Middleton, Portis, and Grayson Allen, the Bucks are 13-3. With all other starting lineups they’re 13-14, although no other arrangement has been used more than three times.
With Holiday out for the last few games, Mike Budenholzer has been starting Giannis, Middleton, and Portis, plus Wesley Matthews and Jordan Nwora. Those five had only played 47 minutes together entering Thursday’s contest, but they were pretty darn serviceable in that period, outscoring their opponents by 22.5 points per hundred possessions. Basically, if you have Giannis on your team, you have a chance of winning.
But nonetheless, losing four of five is frustrating for anyone, and the Bucks came into Thursday’s game hungry.
On Thursday, it was Milwaukee’s hunger that drove the game from the start. The Bucks jumped out to a 16-4 lead in the first five minutes and never looked back.
It was clear from the start that the Warriors were going to have a problem in the frontcourt. That’s true with anyone facing Giannis, but the smaller Golden State lineup just couldn’t contain the combination of Giannis and Bobby Portis. Without Draymond available, the second-biggest Warrior on the floor to open the game was Andrew Wiggins… against the seven-foot Antetokounmpo and 6’10” Portis. Kevon Looney picked up two fouls in just over a minute of guarding Giannis, which led to Kerr putting Iguodala into the game much earlier than he normally would.
That wouldn’t have played out in quite the same way if Draymond had been there to take the Giannis assignment so that Looney could work on Portis.
Steph missed his first attempt from deep before pulling up at the top of the arc to drain his second basket of the game and cut the lead to nine.
After that initial run, it was actually just a 21-17 Bucks advantage in scoring over the final seven minutes of the first quarter. But that still amounted to a 37-21 lead that the Warriors would never be able to come back from.
Both Antetokounmpo and Middleton had 11 points apiece in this first, plus seven points and five rebounds from Portis. As a team, Milwaukee was 5-12 from deep, with three turnovers and just two team fouls. On the other side, the Warriors were led by Wiggins and Poole who had six points each. Golden State couldn’t buy a shot—they were just 2-12 on threes and 8-23 overall. And unfortunately they didn’t end up turning that around.
Bobby Portis was just vicious, hitting threes and stepbacks and doing work in the post, including a buzzer beater to end the half and put Milwaukee up by 39 points. Per ESPN Stats & Info, this was the largest halftime deficit ever faced by a Warriors team since the franchise moved to California. Antetokounmpo and Portis had a combined 40 points in the first half, more than the entire Warriors lineup.
Giannis got whatever he wanted, and every time the Warriors scored the Bucks had an answer. Even when Looney was able to haul in offensive rebounds, his only choice was to pass out of the post if he didn’t want to get blocked by Giannis again and again.
And Giannis… is Giannis. He’s the greatest athlete in the league, and he can do just about anything when he gets going.
The Warriors actually did win the second half, outscoring the Bucks 61-41 over the final two quarters. In the third, they cut the lead by 14 points, thanks to a number of great shots from Curry, Wiggins, and Thompson.
Klay had a brutal first half, but he seemed to find some rhythm in the third, including knocking down back to back threes at the top of the arc off of screens. Classic Klay actions. He also played almost all of the third quarter, which was the longest stretch he’s played since returning, according to Anthony Slater. He’ll be on the bench tomorrow against Chicago, since he isn’t playing in back to back games yet.
Looney also worked hard in the third, on both ends of the ball. He forced a few misses and turnovers from Giannis, and worked hard in the post and on the offensive glass despite getting blocked multiple times.
The third was a great showing from the Warriors, but it was far too late, especially knowing that Klay would be unavailable for the fourth quarter. They shot 6-13 from deep and 11-25 overall in the quarter and outscored Milwaukee 34-20, making almost as many shots in the period as they did in the whole first half.
So, even though the game was basically over for the final 12 minutes, there were plenty of highlights to hold on to. For starters, the third was great for Klay, as his shots finally started to fall. Looney, who I have already mentioned, continued to put in the solid work that he’s been providing all year long, and if he had Draymond by his side I think they would have stood a real chance of staying in the game. They also got great minutes from the younger guys—Jordan Poole had 9 points, and rookie Jonathan Kuminga lit it up with 15 points and 7 rebounds (although he was just 5-16 overall). His athleticism was readily apparent and it’s clear watching him play that as his skills come together he can be a formidable presence on both ends of the floor.
Ultimately, we learned the same lessons from Thursday’s game as we had from previous Warriors losses. They are 19-1 when they shoot 35% or better from deep, and in the eight games where they have shot below 30% on threes they’re just 3-5. Four of those eight games have come in January.
Golden State’s 34.7% shooting from the floor was by far their worst of the season, and it’s only the second time that they’ve shot below 40% overall. They’ve shot below 45% five times in January alone, and they’re 1-4 in those games. When they shoot above 45% overall they are 23-1.
None of this is new, but it’s an important reminder of just how crucial each piece of this roster is to their success. Draymond’s absence was felt intensely on both ends of the floor—when trying to do anything to stop Milwaukee’s big men, and when trying to coordinate the offense. On Thursday night it felt like the Warriors were almost never able to string together multiple well-executed offensive possessions because of how much attention was on Steph and how much the Bucks were able to deny him the ball. And without Draymond conducting the flow of the rest of the offense, there weren’t always many places for Curry to pass out of traffic when he did get trapped, and there were fewer chances for Steph to run around off the ball with no Green to initiate the offense.
Draymond is set to miss Friday’s game at Chicago, and with Klay out as well it will be interesting to see what kind of game plan Kerr puts together for the matchup. The Bulls don’t have the same kind of size that Milwaukee brings to the table, so Looney might actually get a chance to be the one pushing people around in the post, but the real question is going to be the offense.
But ultimately it wont be the end of the world if this road trip ends on a rough note. We’ve officially reached the halfway point of the season, and that’s when things often start to get hard, when teams that have been lucky enough to experience a lot of success get their first real taste of hardship. And this team is going to have to be able to face those kinds of struggles and work through them.
But please, for the sake of all that is good in this world, don’t go to Milwaukee ever again without Draymond in tow. If he’s hurt, just skip the flight and get some extra rest instead.
The Warriors (31-10) visit the Bulls (27-12) on Friday at 5:00 p.m. PT. DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine could both be All-Stars, and Chicago has the best record in the Eastern Conference. Golden State’s hope should come from the fact that Chicago’s defense is middle of the road and they have had the second easiest schedule aside from Milwaukee.