When the Warriors’ struggles first started early within the season, the prevailing narrative was that the workforce needed to be affected by a “championship hangover”.
Such a suggestion implied the workforce would ultimately snap out of it and return to their previous selves. But with the Warriors nonetheless failing to encourage a lot confidence at 29-29 greater than two thirds into the season, their gamers and coaches have needed to confront the truth that one thing may truly be damaged.
“I don’t think it’s a championship hangover,” Draymond Green informed reporters on Tuesday. “It’s a will to wish to defend. You’re not hungover at .500 60 video games into the season. You’re a loser when you’re nonetheless hungover at that time. It’s no hangover.
“It’s the will to defend, to stop and guard your man, to sink and help and trap the box and rotate. Defense is all one or two steps extra. I’m going to take that extra step to get there or not. That’s all will. We don’t have that as a team. You can have that as individuals. I can have that myself. Loon can have that. But if you don’t collectively have that…”
Steve Kerr additionally spoke on the difficulty and broke down particularly what was going unsuitable on the defensive finish.
“Point of attack,” Kerr mentioned when requested what the workforce’s greatest downside was on the defensive finish. “We’re getting beat on penetration. We’re giving up center rather a lot. When you get beat center, there’s an excessive amount of to cowl. Then we’re fouling rather a lot. We’re final within the league in free throw makes an attempt allowed.
“… One of the reasons we made the trade for Gary (Payton II) is to shore up our perimeter defense. We were the No. 2 ranked defense in the league a year ago. I think we have it in us.”
Kerr has repeatedly mentioned that offence has not been the issue, and the numbers again that up.
In reality, the five-man lineup of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green and Kevon Looney is outscoring their opponents by 22 factors per 100 possessions. For context, the 2017 KD Warriors outscored their opponents by 11 factors per 100 possessions.
If they will get their defence to be even half as productive as that, they could lastly be again in enterprise.
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