The Warriors Are Telling Us Who They Are
Another night, another Harden triple-double, sealed with an improbable comeback and breathtaking 30-foot dagger with one second left in overtime. Harden’s Kobe-esque brilliance is starting to feel routine after 5 straight games of 40 points or more.
Another trend that’s starting to feel routine is Golden State failing to close in “clutch” situations (For those who don’t closely follow the NBA’s made up stats, NBA Stats and info classifies “clutch” situations as games decided by 5 points or fewer).
Last season, the Warriors only played in 29 games that qualified as a “clutch” situation, and of those 29 games, they won 19. That was good enough for third in win percentage in clutch games. Makes sense, right? They were great, they didn’t play a ton of close games, and when they did, they won more than almost anyone in the league.
This year they’ve already played in 17 clutch games (almost half of all of their games), and they’ve fallen out of the top ten in “clutch win %” after Harden sunned them in the fourth quarter and OT Thursday night. They’ve only won 9 of those 17 close games, which means they’ve already almost lost the same amount of close games as they did all last season. But what’s more telling is their +/- in “clutch” situations. Following the Beard’s earth-scorching rally, they’re only plus-3 in those situations, which is tied for 14th in the league with the LeBron-less Lakers and the (only recently) surging Rockets.
Translation: The Warriors are telling us they’re not the same team.
It’s not hard to find excuses for the difference in their clutch performance — Steph and Draymond’s combined 25 missed games for example — but it’s still worth considering that there may be something wrong with this beloved Bay Area Dynasty. Iggy’s decline? Lack of depth? KD’s looming free agency? Draymond’s evaporating perimeter game? Klay’s slow start? Pick your narrative, choose your excuse, they all carry real weight in the conversation around Golden State’s, well, strange season so far.
It’s easy to consider this thought and roll your eyes and think I’m concern-trolling the team with the 6th best record in the league (and still far and away the favorite to win the NBA title), but Thursday night was the kind of game we used to be able to turn off in the third quarter because we knew how it would end.
I mean, am I the only one who remembers those Warriors? The Death Lineup? The team that stifled offenses and blew the doors off of defenses in the final 5 minutes of games? This season, close games have highlighted more than anything else that these Warriors are vulnerable, beatable, and possibly one injury or Klay Thompson shooting slump away from disappointment.
Do not misunderstand me, Golden State is still great. They still may be my pick to win it all, but they are decidedly less great than last year’s squad. Their “margin for error” has gone from the largest in NBA history, to slightly less so, and, in 2019, that shift may be enough to disrupt their presumed dynasty.
The Warriors’ clutch numbers are telling us who they are, and they have been all season. Maybe it’s time to listen.
