Warriors made some bad decisions on offense against the Timberwolves in 99-96

It wasn’t pretty at all.

• By
  
  Joe Viray
  
• on March 26, 2023 10:35 pm

This isn’t to downplay the Minnesota Timberwolves’ tremendous defensive effort — they limited the Golden State Warriors to a 97.9 offensive rating — but I felt the Warriors kind of shot themselves on the foot tonight.

The Warriors have always done a great job mixing up their offense and giving opponents different looks. While the motion offense is their bread and butter, having one of the best pick-and-roll ballhandlers in the league in Steph Curry allows them to have the versatility and luxury to switch things up and throw opponents around for a loop.

If the situation calls for it — e.g., there’s a big juicy target for Curry to hunt down — the Warriors are more than willing to dial up ballscreens for him to get the matchup he wants. The defense must then respond in one of two ways: either they give up the easy switch and therefore, the mismatch; or they scheme up a coverage quirk to prevent the potential mismatch.

The Wolves defense did a great job with the latter approach, but they also gave the Warriors small windows of opportunity. Such windows gave the Warriors chances to pick apart the small cracks and bust them wide open.

But for some reason — bad decision making, bad process, or settling due to other factors (e.g., fatigue) — the Warriors just settled too much for my liking. Chucking shots early in the shot clock, bad shot selection, moments of indecision, and going too fast in situations where patience was the prudent approach — all of which helped the Wolves shut down the Warriors offense.

One possession stood out above all others as representative of what ailed their offense against the Wolves:

This isn’t probably the possession you were expecting me to point out (I’ll get to the more glaring ones later). But hear me out on this one.

The Warriors run two ballscreens (“Dive Roll”) to get Karl-Anthony Towns switched onto Curry. This is normally a matchup that Curry takes all the way to its conclusion: either a blow-by and layup, or a stepback three after gaining separation against a slow-footed big.

But instead of Curry attacking Towns in isolation, he passes to Jordan Poole, who doesn’t generate anything against Taurean Prince. The possession then turns into a low-post split action with Curry trying to force Towns to chase him.

All things considered, Towns does a good job on Curry — but I felt like Curry could’ve done more to break Towns down. Instead, he gives up trying to score against the switch, passes to Draymond Green, and a rushed shot with the clock winding down is the result.

That’s a subtle example, but in many ways it spoke the loudest….