Lee’s Heroics Salvage Inconsistent Effort for Much-Needed Win Against Bulls
When a team struggles as much as the Warriors did in their first two games of the season, any win will do. It wasn’t pretty by any stretch, but at the end of the game against the Chicago Bulls, following Damion Lee’s clutch three-pointer, the scoreboard read 129-128 in favor of Golden State. It was exactly what was needed.
DAMION LEE!!!! pic.twitter.com/CICkhqLbGm
— TheWarriorsTalk (@TheWarriorsTalk) December 28, 2020
It’s hard for the third game of the season to be a must-win, but for the Warriors, this one came as close as possible. They’d lost the first two by an average of 32.5 points and faced a Bulls team that doesn’t appear to match Golden State’s talent. Getting a win felt highly necessary, albeit not make-or-break for their season. At the very least, they had to play much better.
They managed to achieve all of that. Although the Warrior offense still looks stagnant and bumpy, they executed plays correctly with more frequency. The team’s defensive rebounding, although a struggle late in the game, was better for long stretches as they allowed only seven offensive rebounds. One of the strengths from the early season — winning the turnover battle — continued against Chicago, as the Warriors forced 24 Bulls turnovers while committing just 12. All of this came together in the second quarter, their best frame of the season so far. They scored 36 points on 45.2% shooting, made seven three-pointers and forced 10 turnovers while creating only one of their own.
Individual players looked better as well. After another slow start, Curry finally erupted in the second half, scoring 25 of his 36 points by scoring from outside, inside and the free-throw line. For the first time this season, it looked like he was really playing exactly how he wanted to play. Andrew Wiggins also had his best game of the year with 19 points, nine rebounds and four assists. He appeared confident and finally had success with his jump shot, making two threes with a shot that also looked better with improved form and greater arc. His aggressiveness on Golden State’s second-to-last possession of the game freed up an opportunity for Kevon Looney’s game-tying putback. Looney, Lee and Eric Paschall all had their best showings of the season, Jordan Poole reached double-digit points, and Brad Wanamaker made up for a tough shooting night with four steals and five assists.
In spite of all of that, the win will obscure the many flaws in this game. The Warriors missed an absurdly high number of defensive assignments. Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen, Coby White and Otto Porter all found themselves wide open for threes on numerous occasions. Some of these came due to slow rotations, others were because of a defender falling asleep. Whatever the cause, the Bulls shot 51.2% from the field and 41.5% from three, with the aforementioned 24 turnovers often serving as the only thing keeping the Warriors in the game. The Golden State offense struggled at times as players once again missed open shots. Curry missed three or four shots that would be mildly annoying for any other player but are unacceptable misses by his standards. Fastbreaks and sequences with good ball movement that should have lead to easy points instead created empty possessions.
Although negative fixations on specific players are often unfair and misleading, it is worth noting that Kelly Oubre’s offense continues to be borderline disastrous. He hasn’t made a single shot outside of the paint this season, and most of his jumpers haven’t even come close to going into the basket. His defense was very good: four steals, eight defensive rebounds, and terrific effort guarding LaVine. However, his shot selection remains terrible, although this isn’t a problem specific to him. The Warriors are making mistakes shooting the ball to an alarmingly high degree. This seems to be a matter of the lack of time playing together. The players haven’t learned each other’s tendencies. Rather than knowing a player — usually Curry — will be open in a given situation because of the way he moves off the ball, they are driving into traffic and forcing tough shots. The focus on driving, making a kickout pass and perhaps doing that several times in a row, which will be necessary for this team to do, hasn’t sunk in yet. Most of the players on the Warriors have high basketball IQs individually. They just don’t have a high basketball IQ as a team at this moment.
Thankfully, they did demonstrate basketball smarts on the decisive play. While the plan was clearly to get the ball to Curry, he was tightly guarded. Inbounder Lee improvised and passed to Looney. Without a clear way to find Curry quickly, Looney found another shooter in Lee, then wisely stepped in front of Tomas Satoransky to give Lee more space. At this point, Lee could have tried to set up Curry, Wiggins or Oubre, but realized the best option was to take the shot himself. He did and sank it with 1.7 seconds left. All the Bulls could do was throw up a desperate halfcourt shot that hit the side of the backboard, and the Warriors had their first win of the season.
This was a deeply important, arguably gratifying win for the Warriors. It came in a game that once again showed that this season will take a long time to develop and will likely be filled with growing pains. But it’s a win. They didn’t have one of those before this game. Now the key is to use it to get better.