New-look Warriors’ defensive intensity fuels historic start originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SALT LAKE CITY – To state the obvious, the Warriors’ start to the 2024-25 NBA season couldn’t have gone better before they boarded a plane home.
The Warriors on the road took over the dominance of a 6-0 preseason, defeating their first two opponents, the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz, by an NBA-record 77 points after sweeping Delta Center with a 127-86 win Friday night had left. Buddy Hield again came off the bench unconscious and scored 27 points in 20 minutes. Hield’s 12 three-pointers are the most ever for a player in his first two games for a new team.
The depth has been so great that Steph Curry has played less than 30 minutes in each of the first two games, for the first time in a row in his career, while being able to sit out both fourth quarters. Draymond Green only had to play 20 minutes in both big wins. The Warriors bench has now scored 150 points, the most ever for a team through the first two games of a season, and the most ever in franchise history for a two-game stretch.
Yet it’s the other side of the ball that makes Golden State reminiscent of their championship teams. The suffocating defense has been as noticeable as the number of points the Warriors have scored.
‘Something that Steve [Kerr]Our coaches, Jerry Stackhouse, challenged us, that has to be our calling card,” Kevon Looney told NBC Sports Bay Area. “We have to be physical, we have to be fast, we have to be sloppy. I think we’ve embodied that in the first two games. They hold us responsible for everything.
“I think our communication was at an elite level to start the season. We have to transfer that. You have a lot of interchangeable guys, a lot of guys of size and height who are really active.
Height, as always, remains a barrier for the Warriors to overcome. They aren’t filled with 7-footers guarding the basket.
Looney is their tallest player at 1.80 meters tall. Trayce Jackson-Davis is also 6 feet tall. But so can Kyle Anderson, who can guard almost any position this offseason and had two steals against the Jazz on Friday night. De’Anthony Melton’s 6-8 wingspan adds a new element to the backcourt, and the Warriors are reaping early benefits from a healthy Gary Payton II.
“By adding guys like Kyle and Melton, [Andrew Wiggins] And [Jonathan Kuminga]Trayce, Draymond is one of the best defensemen ever. When we have guys like that on the court who know the game and know where to cause chaos, we have a lot of guys who have great hands and are really special in that regard. Looney said. “It shows what we can be.
“We’re just scratching the surface. We’re still learning each other, still learning our schedules. It’s only the second game, but we can be really good.”
Curry, Wiggins, Kuminga, Green and Jackson-Davis are also figuring out the Warriors’ new look. That group was outscored 25-11 in the first quarter of the first two games. Then they find a way to flip the script once the second half begins.
In the third quarter through the first two games, that lineup was plus-17.
“All we know is the strength that unit has to bring defensively to start games,” Green told NBC Sports Bay Area.
Green believes the slow start offensively can be attributed to them rushing everything instead of letting the game come to them, something the 13-year veteran blames himself for.
“We come back in the second half and suddenly everyone is comfortable,” Green continued. “We’ve got to come out and settle in with that group to start the game. … It’s just important that that group understands what we’re trying to accomplish, and comes out and settles down quickly. Don’t come out and try to make everything happen in one motion.
“Come outside, relax and everything will fall into place for us.”
Kerr admits the group wasn’t built on distance. What it is built on is an all-time great scorer and shooter in Curry – who was extremely active in full-court defense – surrounded by length and athleticism that should create an aggressive defensive mentality to cause headaches for the opposition.
The formula has changed with the Blazers and Jazz averaging 95 points against the Warriors on 35.3 percent shooting overall and 22.4 percent from three-point range. The Warriors have 28 steals and 11 blocked shots through two games. They had 15 steals against the Jazz, led by three from Green and Payton. Eight players recorded at least one steal, and five had multiple steals.
“The overall athleticism stands out to me,” Kerr said. “We didn’t have that last year. … Up and down the roster we have great defenders. I thought Draymond was great [Lauri] Markkanen asked, and that set a nice tone.”
The Jazz star the Warriors pursued this offseason was a minus-17 with just 13 points on 4-of-17 shooting and 1-of-5 on threes. Two nights earlier, Markkanen scored 35 points against the Memphis Grizzlies, going 9-of-15 from the field and 4-of-7 from deep.
This is the team Kerr always wanted to be: fast, feisty and full of junkyard dogs welcoming a date that could turn out disastrous for any player expecting to have a big scoring night. That’s when the Warriors will be at their best and embrace exactly that identity in the coming months.
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