Green’s Return Helps Warriors Avoid Repeating History Against Bulls
The Golden State Warriors led the Chicago Bulls by three points with less than six minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. They’d held the lead for the vast majority of the game. Throughout Chase Center, the home fans held their breath. It felt eerily similar to a game two days prior against the Oklahoma City Thunder, in which the Warriors led most of the way before completely falling apart in crunch time. The concern was that they would let it happen again. Their sole focus was to avoid doing so.
They avoided doing so. Rather than stagnate and shrink in the moment, they stepped up on both offense and defense to pull away and post a 104-90 victory, their second win at Chase Center and fourth overall win of the season.
How did they do it? Well, there were a variety of factors. Most of it, however, can be boiled down to one man: Draymond Green. Against the Thunder, it seemed as though the Warriors were missing a veteran presence who could serve as a calming force on the floor. Had they had such a player available for that game, they probably would have won. Green, returning from a three-game absence, all but confirmed that on Wednesday night. On offense, he took over the distributing duties late in the game. In the final four minutes, he dished out a total of three assists to Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III as the duo hit huge buckets to expand the lead and eventually ice the game. Green also hit a three-pointer of his own during that stretch. On the defensive end during this time, Green did his usual thing. He played the exact kind of defense that the Warriors have come to expect from him: swarming, covering practically the whole floor and disruptive of any player he guarded. He would frequently guard multiple players in one possession and then grab the defensive rebound as well.
Green checked into the game with 7:31 remaining in the fourth quarter and didn’t leave the floor for the rest of the contest. In the final 7:31 of the game, the Warriors outscored the Bulls 22-11. Those two things are not coincidental. He gave the young Dubs exactly what they were missing, not just in Monday night’s Thunder game, but in other close losses where he didn’t play.
Green posted a very Green-like statline of seven points, eight assists, five rebounds, three steals and two blocks, in addition to his work defensively that won’t show up in the box score. It was exactly what he needed to do. But he wasn’t the only Warrior who had a good night. Marquese Chriss put up 11 points off the bench while making all five of his field-goal attempts. He also played stellar defense, constantly getting involved around the ball to record four steals and two blocks. After possibly his worst shooting game of the season, in which he made just three of his 17 shot attempts from the field, Burks bounced back by scoring 23 points on 9-for-19 shooting, including three three-point baskets and some key buckets down the stretch. He also flirted with a triple-double, adding 10 rebounds and seven assists to his point total. And Eric Paschall just continues to do his thing. He scored 25 points while getting buckets in practically every way imaginable, grabbed seven boards and simply served as a threat whenever he was on the court. He’s only a rookie, but he’s confident and generally willing to take plays into his own hands and be aggressive rather than passive. It’s exciting to think about his potential and where he could fit in with the Warriors down the line.
It is also worth taking a moment to focus especially on Omari Spellman. He earned a double-double with 13 points and a career-high 11 rebounds on Wednesday night and provided one of the highlights of the game with a one-handed putback slam off of a Burks miss in the first quarter. The reason he deserves special consideration, however, was not his performance against Chicago, but rather the season as a whole. He has shown massive improvement throughout the season and is looking more comfortable as a Warrior than ever. Spellman himself even took that sentiment one step further.
“This is the best I’ve felt as a person since college,” he said. “My family, my close circle and the Warriors organization [have] made it a really easy transition from a very bad place to being happy again and just playing basketball.”
He also made sure to give Steve Kerr credit for his renewed confidence and optimism, which benefited his performance on Wednesday.
“He’s telling me to shoot it, telling me to be aggressive,” Spellman said of Kerr. “Just hearing those words over and over again, I think allow me to play aggressively the way I did tonight. Playing for a guy like Coach Kerr is a blessing.”
This goes without saying, but a win over the Bulls does not mean that any of the Warriors’ problems are solved. The Warriors may be 4-15, but the Bulls are not much better at 6-13. Their roster is even younger and less experienced than Golden State’s. Other than Zach LaVine (and maybe Tomas Satoransky), Chicago doesn’t have anyone who can be counted on to make plays. There’s no such thing as a must-win or even a should-win game for the Warriors at this point, but at home against the Chicago Bulls is as close as it gets. The struggles of both teams showed. They combined for 39 turnovers and neither team shot particularly well for most of the game.
It wasn’t pretty, but the Warriors got the win. Right now, that’s all you can ask for from this team, and just about any win is a step in the right direction.