Stephen Curry inbounds ball off unsuspecting Draymond Green as Warriors beat Pistons
The Golden State Warriors rank fourth in the NBA in possessions per 48 minutes this season after leading the league in pace last year on their way to the NBA championship. They don’t like to wait around; they prefer to push the ball, even off opponents’ makes. And, evidently, even if the inbounder doesn’t have the ball or any idea that he’s inbounding it.
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I’ve seen players inbound the ball off opponents before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player inbound the ball from the court off a teammate standing out of bounds and back to himself. Let it never be said that Stephen Curry isn’t an innovator, or that Draymond Green can’t be part of the Warriors’ team concept even while arguing with a ref about whether there should’ve been a foul called on Detroit Pistons forward Marcus Morris for pushing him under the basket. (No, the play probably shouldn’t have been allowed to continue as it did, especially since the ball bounced on the end line after hitting Green and before coming back to Curry. Yes, anyone displeased by the fact that it didn’t should probably lighten up just a tick.)
Curry’s decision to take matters into his own hands was just one example of the Warriors’ unique brand of ball movement on display Monday night, but it was by no means their most enticing or potent:
Facing off against a Pistons team that entered having stomped the opposition en route to a 5-1 mark thanks in part to a defense allowing just 94.6 points per 100 possessions over its first six games, the Warriors weathered an early storm and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s impressively tenacious defense on reigning MVP Stephen Curry by letting their many capable hands turn Detroit into relatively light work. On no play was that sharing-is-caring approach more evident than the second-quarter possession above.
Curry takes a high screen from Green and whips a pass behind his back to the playmaking four man, who dribbles into the paint, collapses the defense, and kicks out to Klay Thompson. He swings it to Curry in the right corner to force Morris to scramble on his closeout, which Curry handles by calmly pump-faking and taking one escape dribble to his right, prompting a hard rotation to the corner by Caldwell-Pope. Curry reads that and fires a pass back to a now-even-more-wide-open Thompson above the arc, drawing a sprint-out from Pistons guard Steve Blake, whom Thompson beats by swinging the ball to reserve guard Leandro Barbosa on the left wing. With four Pistons below the foul line, and Detroit forward Anthony Tolliver a step slow in making his rotation because he didn’t want to leave Green wide-open on the baseline one pass away from a layup or dunk, Barbosa has all day to load up and fire, splashing the 3-pointer.
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The dime was one of 29 Golden State logged on 43 made field goals on Monday — not quite as eye-popping as some of the Warriors’ assist totals, but still indicative of an offense healthy enough to hand a good Pistons team a 109-95 loss, running the Warriors’ record to a perfect 8-0 on the season.
The Warriors were able to handle Detroit (who, to be fair, was on the second night of a back-to-back) even with Curry slogging through a rough-for-him evening (22 points on 7-for-18 shooting, five assists, five turnovers) thanks largely to a breakthrough game for Thompson (24 points on 10-for-17 shooting, 4-for-7 from 3-point range) and the now-customary little-bit-of-everything playmaking brilliance from Green (six points, 10 rebounds, nine assists, four steals, two blocks, just one turnover in 33 minutes). Golden State also got plenty of production from its second unit, including double-figure scoring from Barbosa and Andre Iguodala and a near double-double from returning center Andrew Bogut, seeing his first action since sustaining a concussion on opening night. It was, in words of the San Jose Mercury News’ Adam Lauridsen, the kind of “casual dominance” the Warriors can author thanks to the waves of smart, talented contributors that interim coach Luke Walton can throw at opponents over the course of 48 minutes.
“It’s one of the great things about our team. Our second unit is, we feel, the best in the NBA,” Walton said after the win. “We have great chemistry. We have veterans on that second unit that know how to win. When they give us that type of performance it just makes us that much more dangerous. Did we need it? No, but it was nice to have.”
When the Warriors’ secondary talents and complementary contributors start firing on all cylinders along with Curry, Golden State’s opponents can ill-afford a moment’s lapse in concentration when facing off against the champs. Judging by Monday night, it seems like Green and the rest of the Warriors need to maintain constant focus, too.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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