THE QUICK TAKEAWAYS đ
Yaxel Lendeborg is becoming a legitimate offensive weapon. His 17 points, five assists and varied shot creation suggest the Golden State Warriors can use him as much more than a traditional rookie forward.
The Steph Curry x Draymond Green connection looked familiar again. Green finished with seven points, eight rebounds, 11 assists and three steals, directing an offense that looked particularly sharp in the third quarter.
Al Horford and Georges Niang changed the geometry. Five threes from Horford and an early nine-point burst from Niang helped Golden State recover from an 0-for-7 start.
The offense is evolving, but itâs still a work in progress. New five-out actions, an intriguing 1-1-1-2 formation, only 13 turnovers and a productive â if imperfect â night from Brandin Podziemski gave us a lot to study before opening night.
One of the things I love about doing these Warriors watch parties is that every once in a while, youâll see a possession that makes you stop taking notes and start imagining possibilities.
Not just who scored or assisted, but how five players moved together, how a defender got pulled a few feet out of position, or how somebody recognized it without hesitation. Suddenly youâre watching a basketball team that looks like it knows exactly where itâs going.
We got a little bit of that Friday night at Chase Center. The Warriors beat the Portland Trail Blazers 128â118 to finish their preseason 4â2 and while I know weâre all supposed to remind ourselves that none of this counts in the standings, I found myself getting increasingly excited about the way the Dubs are playing.
Not every possession, of course. We started the game missing our first seven shots, but by the time Steph and Draymond started playing their familiar two-man game in the third quarter, Horford was launching threes as if heâd been playing alongside these guys for years, and Lendeborg was looking like a 6-foot-10 point-forward who can also score, I was beginning to see something.
The puzzle pieces werenât all in place, especially with Jimmy Butler, Moses Moody and Kristaps Porzingis unavailable, but they were starting to look like they belonged to the same puzzle. And that, to me, was the biggest takeaway.
Niang Saved Us From an Awful Start
Letâs rewind to the opening four minutes, because they were not particularly pretty.
Steve Kerr started Steph, Podz, Yax, Draymond at the 4 and Charles Bassey at the 5. I liked the idea of Bassey as a more traditional center presence, particularly after the defensive difficulties against the Lakers, and he immediately showed some activity on the glass. There was an early possession where he got involved on multiple rebounds, only for the Warriors to come away empty. That seemed to be the theme early on.
Podz launched a three with Toumani Camara practically on his back. Steph had a steal that turned into a turnover when he tried to save the ball. Another Curry three missed. Another Podz three missed. By the time the Warriors were 0-for-7 from the field, Portland was threatening to make this another one of those nights where weâre discussing everything that went wrong before the first commercial break.
Yaxel finally got Golden State on the board with a nice downhill push shot, but we also saw one of those small defensive decisions heâll need to keep working on. Deni Avdija attacked Draymond and kicked to Camara for a three after Yax helped off the perimeter. I wasnât convinced that help was necessary initially, although on the replay it appeared Dray might have been beaten enough to justify some support.
Thatâs the kind of nuance I want us to preserve when evaluating Yax. These arenât always obvious right-or-wrong decisions, especially for a rookie learning NBA personnel.
Then Damian Lillard â OakTownâs finest back in the Bay! â knocked down a pull-up three and the Warriors were staring at a 10-2 deficit. Kerr called timeout and rearranged the lineup.
Enter Georges Niang. I donât know how many of you had Niang, first-quarter rescue mission on your bingo card, but he certainly wasnât interested in waiting around for Steph to get going.
Niang cut inside, received a beautiful feed from Draymond and finished through contact against Camara for an and-one. Then came a three off an especially nice Draymond touch pass. Then another three, this one from the left corner, with Niang backpedaling into position during early offense after a Portland miss. Nine straight points from The Minivan, who said postgame on the podium that he hadnât been able to âhit the broadside of a barn,â so he was due.
Just like that, we were tied 15-15 and a game that had been developing into an early offensive nightmare suddenly had an entirely different complexion. Niang finished with 13 points, all in the first half, and reminded everybody that while foot speed and athleticism matter, knowing where to go, how to cut and when to get your feet set can still produce tremendous value in Kerrâs system.
And remember, Kerr has spent this preseason talking about changing the Warriorsâ identity and making smarter offensive decisions. This was a pretty good advertisement for that.
Those Little Yax Things in Q1
Yaxelâs final numbers, 17 points on 6-for-9 shooting, two threes, five assists, four rebounds, two steals and a block, are encouraging by themselves. But Iâm much more interested in how he got there.
After Niangâs scoring burst, Yax attacked Scoot Henderson one-on-one. Scoot is a physically imposing guard, the kind of player who can disrupt smaller ballhandlers simply by getting into their bodies.
Yax wasnât bothered. He used his size, got downhill and drew a foul on Yang Hansen. A little later, he intercepted a bad pass from VĂt KrejÄĂ, starting a possession that ended with Podz finding Niang for a reverse layup attempt and a trip to the line.
Then there was the play I really liked: Yax went between his legs, attacked to his left, drew the defense and kicked the ball back to Horford at the top for three. Bang!
And near the end of the quarter, Yax posted up Dame, forcing Portland into a defensive three-second violation by Hansen.
A rookie who can handle the ball on the perimeter, attack a smaller defender, pass to an open shooter and still establish a post-up when the matchup presents itself? Thatâs an interesting combination.
The Warriors went from trailing 10-2 to leading 35-26 after one quarter, a nine-point lead after missing their first seven shots.
A Little European Offensive Set
Now hereâs something I suspect most ordinary game recaps wonât spend much time discussing. With just under two minutes remaining in the first quarter, the Warriors ran an unusual offensive formation that I described during the watch party as a 1-1-1-2 set.
Three players were staggered vertically, with two more positioned toward the corners. Horford was involved in initiating the action, DeâAnthony Melton executed a slip cut and eventually drew a foul:
It wasnât the most spectacular play of the evening, but I loved it. I love seeing the structure of a possession before the actual attack develops, because it gives you clues about what the coaching staff is trying to accomplish.
To my eye, this was a more European-style alignment than the familiar Warriors actions weâve watched over the years. Maybe Terry Stotts experimented with something similar once or twice last season, but I honestly couldnât remember seeing this particular look regularly from Golden State.
And thatâs saying something, because Iâve watched an awful lot of Warriors basketball. Having coached myself, I probably wouldâve stolen this play if I were still running my old team. Thatâs what coaches do. We see something clever and immediately start thinking about where we could use it. đ§
This is one reason Iâve been enjoying the work of Kerr, Stotts, and Frank Vogel this preseason. Thereâs more experimentation going on than just telling everybody to stand outside the three-point line and calling it five-out. There are layers to the spacing, screening angles, slip cuts and how the Warriors initiate possessions.
For those of you who want to study it yourselves, the play begins around 46:46 of our full WarriorsâBlazers watch party. Iâd love to revisit that possession in a dedicated Xs & Os video.
Q2 Chemistry
Golden State opened the second quarter with a more familiar action. Dray established position in the mid-post, Bassey screened for Steph and Curry curled into a three â 38-26.
Then Draymond defended Dame well, helped finish the defensive possession, ran the floor and lobbed an alley-oop to Bassey â 40-26.
Thatâs what I mean by the offense beginning to click. You can execute a beautifully organized half-court possession, then turn around and generate an easy basket simply because Dray recognizes an opportunity before everybody else.
Bassey added a little push shot later, and while he finished with just six points in eight minutes, I liked some of his activity. Turns out, thought, Warriors trainer Drew Yoder told Kerr that Bassey was âbanged up,â so Steve went back to the Draymond-at-the-5 lineup with Gui Santos at the 3 and Yaxel at the 4 to start the second half, per postgame reporting from the Bill King Interview Room at Chase Center by Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area. Bassey did not return.
The interesting question, of course, is what that means for the starting lineup when the regular season begins. More on that in a bit.
Meanwhile, Yax produced two of my favorite individual plays of the half. On the first, Will Richard provided a ghost screen, Yax attacked downhill and threw down a powerful dunk against Sidy Cissoko.
On the next, he went directly at Cissoko one-on-one, absorbed the contact, scored and flexed. Cissoko could do nothing but walk away. This is exactly the kind of aggression Kerr has been asking for.
In fact, in our recent Podz-Kerr Q&A compilation, Steve specifically explained that the Warriors intend to play through Yaxel frequently and need him to look for his own offense rather than always deferring to teammates.
Think about that for a moment. Weâre talking about a rookie coming into a team built around Curry, Green, Butler and a bunch of experienced veterans. And the head coach is already talking about playing through him!
Itâs not an invitation to hijack the offense. Itâs a recognition that Yax has skills the Warriors need to utilize. This game offered several examples.
The missed and-one free throws? Weâll work on that. Yax went 3-for-5 at the line overall, and there were a couple of missed opportunities to complete three-point plays, but the underlying process â getting into the paint, forcing defenders to react and creating advantages â was encouraging.
And yes, Horford kept shooting threes. At halftime, Al had 12 points, all on four triples, while Niang led the team with 13 and Yax had 11. Steph, meanwhile, was just 3-for-11 from the field. Golden State still led 67-58.
Thatâs a pretty significant development when you consider how much of the Warriorsâ offense has historically depended on Steph being absolutely brilliant.
My Podz Diatribe â Part Twelve? đ
I want to give Brandin his flowers here, but I also need to explain the distinction Iâve been making throughout preseason. Podz finished with 17 points, three made threes and only one turnover. Good game!
He made a four-point play in the second quarter off a Horford screen, played several excellent defensive possessions away from the ball, and grabbed one defensive rebound between two taller Portland players before pushing the ball ahead to Gui for a terrific step-through finish.
Later in the third quarter, he blocked Avdija, allowing Draymond to fire a touchdown pass to Yax, who moved it to Gui for another finish. That was beautiful basketball.
Iâve consistently said Podz is an elite off-ball player, and those are exactly the sorts of plays Iâm talking about. What bothers me is what happens when he becomes the primary ballhandler against length and pressure.
He took those two questionable threes early. He had a push-off turnover in the first quarter. Later, Camara bothered him bringing the ball up and there were a few possessions where he picked up his dribble or allowed the defense to dictate what happened next.
To me, those arenât the same issues as his off-ball decision-making. Theyâre separate skill sets and Iâd love for Podz to study more of what Chris Paul did so well: keeping his dribble alive, controlling the defender, getting to the mid-range and creating an actual threat that forces the defense to respond.
Itâs not that I want Podz to stop being confident. I want him to become more selectively confident.
Now, I did notice he celebrated his four-point play with the familiar Steph-style mouthpiece routine and the little one-two-three-four celebration, plus the mouthpiece-out-of-the-mouth thing we saw in Vegas while waiting for a free throw, so maybe he has chosen Steph as the template. If thatâs the case, please go copy specifically Curryâs ability to keep his dribble alive.
And I should emphasize that Podz is still young and developing. Thereâs plenty of time for these details to improve. What Iâd really enjoy is sitting down with one of the Warriorsâ assistant coaches and asking whether Iâm reading his on-ball limitations correctly, because maybe thereâs something the coaching staff sees that I havenât fully appreciated.
Thatâs the fun part of basketball analysis. You can have a strong opinion without pretending you know everything.
Q3 Resembled Warriors Basketball Again
This was easily my favorite stretch of the night. The Warriors outscored Portland 38-33 in the third quarter, but even that doesnât adequately describe how connected the offense looked.
Steph opened with a three over Camara. Then he delivered a left-handed behind-the-back pass to Draymond, who drilled a three of his own â 73-58.
Podz scored on a slip cut, Yax knocked down a pull-up three off a Draymond screen, Gui scored on another five-out slip cut, with Dray collecting another assist â 80-66.
The ball was moving, people were cutting, defenders were being forced to make decisions, and the Warriors were beginning to look less like five guys learning new terminology and more like a team with a shared understanding of what it wanted to accomplish.
Then came an especially nice transition possession. Podz blocked Deni, Draymond launched a long outlet pass, Yax made the extra pass and Gui finished with a step-through â 85-66.
But perhaps my favorite possession was Curry and Green playing their little two-man game against Donovan Clingan. Steph went left-handed behind the back to Dray, received the ball again and toyed with Clingan before finishing with a banker.
During the livestream, I compared it to someone moving a laser pointer around while a cat tries to chase the dot. Thatâs what it looked like! đ
Clingan was trying to react to the ball, but Steph and Draymond were already a step ahead. Thatâs the chemistry weâre so accustomed to seeing from those two.
A little later, Draymond found Steph for another three after Gary Payton II provided a late screen that felt executed via ESP. Gary then stole a Ja Morant pass and raced all 94 feet for a layup. I think he initially wanted to dunk it, but changed his mind at the last second and settled for a banker layup.
Then Steph collected a long rebound, pushed a 4-on-3 break, turned the corner at the left elbow and lofted one of those pretty left-handed bankers off the glass â 94-70. Good olâ fashioned beautiful Warriors basketball.
Why Yax Could Change Everything
I keep coming back to one particular question: What happens when Jimmy and Moses return â and Yaxel becomes another player opposing defenses have to game-plan for?
