NEW YORK — The signs of a great team are there, no matter how small the sample size is.
Elite at offense and defense, turning opponents over while taking care of the ball and an offensive system that breeds the best passing unit in the league. Finally making layups and free throws. It’s amazing what getting back to basics can do.
Since Jimmy Butler joined the Warriors , Golden State ranks fourth in offensive rating and second in defensive rating. They’re 9-2 since the trade and 9-1 in games Butler is in the lineup, forming the kind of identity any contender would want.
The Warriors (34-28) are one winnable game away from a 4-1 East Coast road trip. They swept a challenging back-to-back in Charlotte and Madison Square Garden, coming back from a 10-point hole against the Knicks by bearing down defensively. They’re in sole possession of sixth place — their stated goal that looked ambitious at the time of trade.
“At the end of the day, you just try to limit your turnovers and usually good things are going to happen,” Steph Curry said after the Knicks win.
“Whether we make or miss shots, we don’t really live or die by them. It’s truly the fundamentals of the game: play good defense, take care of the ball, and then we’re getting better at getting organized offensively with certain sets.”
The Warriors are becoming a two-way team — the type of team they looked like during their 12-3 start before crashing through a lottery-level pair of months.
To beat the Knicks, Golden State held New York scoreless for a four-minute stretch in the fourth quarter and closed on a 20-9 run. Curry engineered their offense with 28 points and nine assists, but Butler (19 points) helped connect everything in the minutes he sat.
That’s starting to become part of the Warriors’ formula.
In Butler’s words, the Warriors have been much better at getting “shots on goal.” In their last 11 games, the Warriors have lost the turnover margin twice. They committed just 11 turnovers against the Knicks.
“Just liked how solid we were for the whole 48,” Steve Kerr said. “Every possession mattered. There was purpose. And Jimmy has a lot to do with that. But I give all of our guys credit because they’re finding a real identity and it’s fun to watch unfold.”
Tuesday night was one of the Warriors’ best wins of the season, and it was certainly the best they’ve leveraged Curry’s gravity in months. It took composure, trust, offensive organization and a recent film session to emphasize it all to do so. Several times, players slipped screens, cut backdoor and sliced through the lane as New York’s defense swarmed to Curry, creating layups.
And the Warriors, for the most part, finished them.
Layups and free throws were Golden State’s biggest bugaboos during its 7-17 spell. They had Groundhog Day-esque misses at the rim and nights so poor at the foul stripe that any high school coach in the WCAL would lose their mind.
Butler has singlehandedly flipped the script. There are now two Warriors seasons: Before Butler and After Butler.
According to popular basketball analytics account AutomaticNBA, the Warriors ranked dead last in games shooting 55% or better on layups and 75% or better at the line (5) before Feb. 8. Since Feb. 8 — the Butler trade — they lead the league with eight such games in 11 opportunities.
Basketball is a simple game. And the Warriors appear to be figuring it out at the right time.
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“We’re becoming a team that puts it together on both sides of the ball,” Draymond Green said. “Our defense is fueling or offense, and our offense is helping our defense. When you connect the game like that, it gives you the chance to be a really good team. We’re not turning the ball over like we were turning the ball over, we’re getting to the free throw line better than we were getting to the free throw line, which allows us to set our defense. And our defense, when it’s set, is pretty good all year.”
The footnote on this excellent Warriors stretch is they certainly got a favorable patch of schedule. They caught the Bucks without Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Hornets twice — and once without LaMelo Ball — Dallas without Anthony Davis twice and a bad Chicago team.
But before the Butler trade, any game was a toss-up. When you’re operating at a top-five level on both ends of the court, that’s no longer the case.
“Makes me very excited,” Kerr said. “That’s what it’s about. This is a league where you’ve got to be a two-way team to win at a high level. We’ve been pretty decent defensively this year for the most part…but didn’t feel like we were great at that end. It feels now, with the addition of Jimmy, it feels like we’re elevating to a much higher status defensively. And offensively, the game just makes a lot more sense. So yeah, it’s fun, but we’ve got a long way to go.”
