WARRIORS PRACTICE FACILITY, OAKLAND, CA — The Golden State Warriors have evened the 2015 Western Conference Semifinals series against the Memphis Grizzlies at 2-2, winning in dramatic fashion with a key defensive adjustment. However, one problem still remains: turnovers.
In their loss in Game 2, the Warriors committed 17 turnovers. In their next loss in Game 3, they committed 20. And in Game 4, although they played better on both ends of the court, they still committed 21 turnovers.
Center Andrew Bogut noticed a difference between the type of turnovers in their Game 4 win as opposed to the ones in Games 2 and 3.
“There were a couple careless ones a couple days ago (in Game 3), but I think last game, we’ll take those turnovers because they’re aggressive turnovers where we’re trying to attack, trying to make the right play,” said Bogut today at morning shootaround before Game 5. “Whereas Game 2 and 3, they were kind of just complacent, lazy turnovers where we’re just kind of on the back foot, trying to make home run passes and what not. For the most part, last game our turnovers had good intent.”
Point guard Stephen Curry shared the same sentiment.
“Going through the game, I didn’t even realize we had that many, to be honest with you, because we had some great possessions. They were purposeful passes, purposeful cuts, and drives to the basket. When I saw the statsheet after the game, it didn’t feel like we had that many. I think maybe it’s because they didn’t have as many run-outs out of those turnovers, easy baskets where there’s no defense for that,” said Curry. “Except the first four minutes of the third quarter (in Game 4), other than that, it felt like we had solid control over our offensive effort and controlling the basketball.”
One of guilty parties in committing too many turnovers is power forward Draymond Green, who had a costly one late in Game 3 during a comeback attempt…
…and notched five turnovers in Game 3 and an eye-popping seven in Game 4.
“I’ve just got to make better decisions,” said Green in an interview with Tom Tolbert on KNBR. “A couple of them were mishandled basketballs driving down the paint and mishandling the ball, but also, like the pass to Harrison (Barnes) on the wing, I thought he was cutting. I’ve just got to be more sound with my decisions and definitely got to cut down on turnovers.”
The team has preached all season long to give up a good shot to get a great shot, and it seems they are still in the process of learning how to execute on that strategy on a consistent basis.
“We had a high turnover game (in Game 4), but I think that was predicated on us trying to make the right play and not get stuck on one side of the floor,” Bogut added. “They’re very good in the first 10 seconds of the shotclock defensively.
“If we keep the ball on one side of the split line and thinking we’ll get a good shot by keeping the ball there, it’s not going to work. So we know if we move the ball around the horn, we can still do that in ten seconds, but if we move the ball and it touches 4 or 5 people’s hands, we know that we can get wide open shots for our shooters.”
“They struggle to score sometimes and turnovers really fuel them. If we can take those turnovers out of the game, we can stop them from scoring as many points as they’ve been scoring,” said Green.
Why are the Warriors still learning this, even after 67 wins in the regular season and an epic defensive performance to regain homecourt advantage in this series?
Because, according to head coach Steve Kerr, the team walks the fine line of caring “too much” and trusting that ball movement will lead to better results.
“Sometimes they care too much and try to do it on their own,” said Kerr at media availability yesterday in between games. “That sounds counter-intuitive, but when you care about your teammates and you want to win for them, sometimes you try to save the day and, really, it’s more about just trusting everybody and letting it happen instead of forcing it.”
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via AP)
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