Some alarm bells are ringing in Golden State as back-to-back defeats to the Hornets, and the Pistons saw them drop to 3-4 on the season. Despite having brought back almost everyone from a team that was so dominant in this past postseason, the Warriors just don’t look the same.
Sure, it is early on in the season, but you’d still expect a lot better from them than what they’ve shown so far. Head coach Steve Kerr is certainly not a happy man with the way they’re playing as he stated that “It looks like a pick-up game out there.”
NBA Analyst Marc J. Spears Explains Why The Warriors Are Struggling Right Now
Draymond Green explained their struggles by saying that their offense is killing their defense, and that is just one of the many reasons why they are in a funk right now. Marc J. Spears was on NBA Today on ESPN recently, where he was asked what the biggest reason behind the slow start that the Warriors have had was.
(starts at 1:22 mark):
“Let’s start with their defense. The Warriors have the second-worst defense in the NBA by a hair, just a hair to the Brooklyn Nets. They are allowing 122 points per game. They are also fouling a lot, their transition defense is bad. They have allowed 125+ points four times this season. The bench rotation is also in question, they had 2 two-way guys playing yesterday in Ty Jerome and Anthony Lamb. Donte DiVincenzo is still out, Klay Thompson as you mentioned missed it with rest. He is still working on his conditioning, James Wiseman is up and down, ball movement.”
The Warriors actually slipped to the bottom after Spears said this, as the Nets only allowed 109 points to the Pacers on Monday night. This is some major slippage from the Warriors, as they ranked 3rd in points allowed per game last season at just 105.46. Their defensive rating also shows just how much worse they have gotten, as they were 2nd last season and are 24th this time around.
As Spears said, Klay Thompson was out for the game against the Pistons as he was rested, but you wouldn’t know they missed him, as his play has to be a big concern for the Warriors. He is averaging 12.3 points on 34.6% shooting from the field this season and looks like a shell of the player he once was. Maybe he will get better as the season goes on, but it definitely doesn’t look good right now, and his poor play is contributing to their early-season woes.
