Maybe Warriors, on five-game skid, letting league know they are mediocre
SAN FRANCISCO >> Home hasn't been kind to the Warriors yet. They are 1-5 at Chase Center with a 0-4 start to their six-game homestand.
There are some caveats behind those numbers, which include a 128109 loss Thursday night against Oklahoma City.
Steph Curry missed the past two losses because of a sore knee. Draymond Green was ejected from Tuesday's game and suspended for the rest of the homestand for choking Rudy Gobert. Klay Thompson was ejected from Tuesday's loss, and now Gary Payton II is dealing with an ankle sprain.
There's plenty to pull from the losses, though. Here are takeaways from a bad time out at Chase Center. ARE THEY MEDIOCRE? >> Thirteen games into the season, the Warriors are 6-7 with a five-game win streak and a five-game losing streak. Through both highs and lows, They have turned in lukewarm results outside of Curry's 30.7 scoring average.
Let's compare: They were 5-8 at this point last year and started 11-2 — going 18-2 before their third loss — during the championship season. Andrew Wiggins was there for all of it and reasons that winning eight of their last 10 games, minus the playin tournament, at end of the 202021 season rolled into the start of the championship year. Green's big punch knocked out the good chemistry and soured the following season. And this year, they're still mapping out the look of the team.
“We're not last year's team and right now we're not the team we were two years ago — 18-2 speaks for itself,” Wiggins said. “But we're still finding ourselves. We have a whole new team, a lot of new guys, but we're going to find it. We have the talent to beat anybody, to go all the way. It's going to be on us to figure out how we're going to win.”
THE DEFENSE HASN'T BEEN AWESOME >> Green has been out for three of the five lost games. That's shown in a mediocre defensive effort over their past five games.
The Warriors have a 116 defensive rating since Nov. 8 loss to the Denver Nuggets and coach Steve Kerr raised concerns about their issues keeping a good “shell” on defense complicated, in part, by the Warriors' needed to play a lot of three- and four-guard lineups that put them at a size disadvantage.
The Thunder are shooting 55.7% from 3 in two games against Warriors this season with another game to come tonight.
Speaking of Draymond, the general sense around the team is that his Rudy Gobert headlock crossed a line but didn't upset any of his teammates. They saw it as Green defending Klay Thompson — and acknowledge that an unwritten rule applies admonishing Gobert for putting his hands on Thompson instead of his own teammate during a scuffle with Jaden McDaniels. They say Green was right to react — until it went too far.
PODZIEMSKI'S COME UP >> Rookie Brandin Podziemski exchanged jerseys with fellow former Santa Clara Bronco Jalen Williams after the Thunder game. He said after the game Williams inspired him to transfer from Illinois — where he was getting benched — to the west coast.
“He was a big reason I went to Santa Clara,” Podziemksi said. “Just seeing the success he had his junior year and climb draft boards, it gave me confidence I could do the same thing. Coach (Herb) Sendek said, `What Jalen did, we want you to do the same thing.'”