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Kendra AndrewsESPN
LOS ANGELES — WarriorsFollowing the Golden State win, Steve Kerr was hoarse than usual. 119-104 lossTo the LA ClippersMonday night
Kerr explained that he was yelling a lot. A half-grin appeared on his face for a moment. He quickly lost the half-grin and began to talk about Crypto.com Arena performance, in particular defense.
Kerr stated that the main issue is that defense has been poor. “It’s been awful for six or seven of these games.” It’s difficult to win this league when you look defensively with so many holes.
“I know we’re No. He continued, using air quotations. “But we are not right now. Those numbers are inflated because of what we did earlier this season. In defensive rating, we have been in the bottom five for at least seven of the last seven games.
Over the seven previous games, the Warriors allowed 113.3 points. This is their worst seven-game stretch this season. The Warriors are 22nd in defensive efficiency for February. They allowed just 102.9. points on 100 possessions before.
Their defense in the paint was a major problem against the Clippers. Kerr was aware of the problem going into the night.
Kerr spoke out in his pregame press conference, saying that Golden State’s defensive shell was leaking, allowing too many backdoors to the team and rebound. Los Angeles was the victim of exactly this.
Kerr said, “They went right round us.” “Point of attack defense was the biggest issue tonight, but it has been something different each night. This is what I meant to say before: If you can’t trust the connection defensively, the competitiveness, and the fire, every evening will be a little bit different depending on which talent you’re up against.”
Each night, the Warriors have different problems depending on who they are playing — Kerr named box-outs and back cuts as the three main issues — but the common theme over the past few weeks is points in the paint.
Average opponents score 51.7 points against the Warriors in February which ranks 23rd among the NBA. The Warriors were ranked fourth in this category before this month.
This is directly related to the fact the Warriors are the third-worst in drive defense, allowing 1.15 point per direct play according to Second Spectrum tracking.
They allowed 1.53 points per drive against the Clippers, which was their second-worst performance in any Kerr game. Their worst game in this statistic occurred in 2019, also against Clippers.
It resulted in 54 points for the Clippers in the paint.
“They hit a lot more shots early because they felt very comfortable, and we didn’t make them feel uncomfortable to start the game.” Stephen Curry said. “No matter how hot it was for some parts of the game they took it to me. It’s not good to never have momentum, or even three stops in one go. The floodgates were wide open for them all night.
The lack of defense can be attributed to a large part of the Warriors’ defensive slump. Draymond GreenThe injured disc left his L5-S1 disc in his back. He has been out since Jan. 9.
The Warriors have not yet established a timetable for Green’s return, but he expects to be back within a few weeks.
It is up to the individual to decide if this is an achievable goal.
“[Draymond]”He is one of the top defenders in league, so having him out there will always be something we are missing,” stated Kevon LooneyThis is the Warriors’ only true big moment. “We have demonstrated in other games that we can be a very good defensive team without him, not tonight but in others.” Tonight, we let them feel at ease from the jump.”
The team believes that any improvement Golden State sees on the defensive side of the ball starts with every player being held accountable for their part in the five-man defensive plan.
Then, it’s about making a continuous effort.
The Warriors have only one game before the All Star break so they won’t have much time before their week off. Perhaps that’s all they need. However, when they return home, they will need to have a new mindset.
Kerr said, “It is up to us.” “We will have to put in the effort, communicate, and connect to get back to the things that we did before.”