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NBA Storylines: 1 reason for Warriors' recent struggles – NBA.com
Golden State has lost 8 of its last 10 games. A lack of transition offense has played a factor.
John Schuhmann
The Warriors have seen a massive dip in creating early offense, ranking last in transition points.
The Golden State Warriors actually have a winning road record this season. But otherwise, they haven’t looked like the contender some thought they’d be.
At 7-9, the Warriors currently sit in 11th place in the Western Conference. And they’ve been slightly worse than the league average (113.4 points per 100 possessions) on both ends of the floor.
One issue has been that the Warriors aren’t getting nearly as much early offense as their opponents. According to Synergy tracking, they’ve been outscored by 8.5 points per game in transition, by far the league’s worst discrepancy.
Biggest discrepancy, transition points per game, 2023-24
Through Nov. 22, 2023
via Synergy tracking
The drop-off from last season, when the Warriors slightly outscored their opponents in transition, has been much more about their offense. According to Synergy, Golden State ranks last, by a wide margin, in the percentage of their possessions (11.7%) that have been in transition, down from 16.6% (16th) last season.
Overall, the addition of Chris Paul has been a positive for the Warriors, who’ve been better, both offensively and defensively, with him on the floor. But when it comes to transition, there’s a big difference between Jordan Poole and the future Hall-of-Famer who replaced him.
Paul, of course, is more of a distributor than a scorer. But Poole’s transition points haven’t been distributed elsewhere. In fact, Stephen Curry (from 4.9 to 3.4), Klay Thompson (from 4.8 to 2.5) and Andrew Wiggins (from 4.0 to 1.3) have all seen big drops in transition points per 36 minutes. Curry has done just fine in the half-court, but both Thompson and Wiggins have registered their worst effective field goal percentages of the last 10 years.
According to Second Spectrum tracking, the Warriors rank 12th with 13.9 pass-ahead passes per game, so they’re looking to get the ball up the floor to a certain degree. But that’s down from 15.0 pass-ahead passes per game (third) last season.
Transition opportunities generally lead to better shots and, with fewer transition opportunities, the Warriors are getting less efficient attempts at the basket. Only 63% of their shots have come from the restricted area or 3-point range, down from 71% last season.
They scored a season-high 28 transition points in their loss to Phoenix on Wednesday, ending a streak of 12 straight games in which they were outscored in transition. But 23 of those 28 points came from the bench in the final 15 minutes, after they were in a big hole.
It’s still early — the Warriors are one of the toughest teams to guard in the half-court, and this is a veteran group that should figure things out over the long run. But if the Warriors don’t find ways to run more, they’ll continue to make things tougher on themselves.
Better defense can lead to more early offense, but the Warriors are without the suspended Draymond Green for one more game — Friday’s In-Season Tournament visit from the Spurs (10 ET, ESPN). With San Antonio ranking last in transition points per game allowed (25.4), that could be an opportunity for the Warriors to run.
They’ll then have three days off before their tournament finale, Tuesday in Sacramento (10 ET, TNT). For the second straight season, the Kings have allowed the second-fewest transition points per game (17.3).
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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
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