New-look Warriors’ defensive intensity is fueling historic start

New-look Warriors’ defensive intensity is fueling historic start originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SALT LAKE CITY – To state the obvious, the Warriors’ start to the 2024-25 NBA season couldn’t have gone any better before boarding a plane back home.

Carrying over the dominance of a 6-0 preseason, the Warriors on the road outscored their first two opponents, the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz, by an NBA record 77 points after leaving Delta Center with a 127-86 win Friday night. Buddy Hield again was unconscious coming off the bench, scoring 27 points in 20 minutes. Hield’s 12 3-pointers are the most ever for a player through their first two games for a new team.

The depth has been so great that Steph Curry has played under 30 minutes in each of the first two games, doing so consecutively for the first time in his career while being able to sit the entirety of both fourth quarters. Draymond Green has only needed to play 20 minutes in both blowout wins. The Warriors’ bench now has scored 150 points, the most ever for a team through the first two games of a season, and the most ever in franchise history for a two game span.

Yet it’s the other side of the ball that has Golden State looking reminiscent of their championship squads. Stifling defense has stood out just as much as how many points the Warriors have scored.

“Something that Steve [Kerr], our coaches, Jerry Stackhouse have been challenging us on that has to be our calling card,” Kevon Looney told NBC Sports Bay Area. “We have to be physical, we have to be fast, we have to be scrappy. I think the first two games we have embodied that. They hold us accountable with everything.

“I think our communication has been at an elite level to start the season. We have to carry that over. You got a lot of interchangeable guys, a lot of guys with size and length that’s really active.”

Height, like always, remains a barrier the Warriors must overcome. They aren’t filled with 7-footers guarding the basket.

Looney at 6-foot-9 is their tallest player. Trayce Jackson-Davis also is 6-foot-9. But so is offseason addition Kyle Anderson, who can guard nearly every position and had two steals Friday night against the Jazz. De’Anthony Melton’s 6-8 wingspan adds a new element in the backcourt, and the Warriors early on are reaping the benefits of a healthy Gary Payton II.

“Adding guys like Kyle and Melton, [Andrew Wiggins] and [Jonathan Kuminga], Trayce, Draymond’s one the best defenders ever – when we have guys like that on the court who know the game and know where to be causing havoc, we got a lot of guys who have great hands and are really special on that end,” Looney said. “It’s showing what we can be.

“We’re just scratching the surface. Still learning each other, still learning our schemes. It’s only the second game, but we can be really, really good.”

The Warriors’ new-look starting five of Curry, Wiggins, Kuminga, Green and Jackson-Davis also are figuring each other out. That group has been outscored 25-11 in the first quarter of the first two games. Then they find a way to flip the script once the second half begins.

In the third quarter through the first two games, that lineup has been a plus-17.

“The one thing that we know is the force that that unit has to bring defensively to start off games,” Green told NBC Sports Bay Area.

Green believes the slow starts offensively can be attributed to them coming out rushing everything as opposed to letting the game come to them, something the 13-year veteran blames himself for.

“We come back in the second half and then all of the sudden everybody is settled in,” Green continued. “We gotta come out, settle down with that group to start the game. … It’s just important for that group to understand what we’re trying to get to and come out and settle down fast. Don’t come out and try to make everything happen in one swipe.

“Come out, settle down and then everything starts falling into place for us.”

Kerr admits the group isn’t built on spacing. What it is built on is an all-time great scorer and shooter in Curry – who was extremely active defensively picking up full court — surrounded by length and athleticism that should create an aggressive defensive mindset to give headaches for the opposition.

The formula has turned into the Blazers and Jazz averaging 95 points against the Warriors on 35.3-percent shooting overall and 22.4 percent from 3-point range. The Warriors have 28 steals and 11 blocked shots in two games. They had 15 steals against the Jazz, led by three from Green and Payton. Eight players recorded at least one steal, and five had multiple steals.

“The overall athleticism jumps out to me,” Kerr said. “We didn’t have that last year. … Up and down the roster, we’ve got great defenders. I thought Draymond was amazing on [Lauri] Markkanen early, and that set a great tone.”

The Jazz star who the Warriors pursued over the offseason was a minus-17 with only 13 points on 4-of-17 shooting and 1 of 5 on threes. Two nights earlier, Markkanen scored 35 points against the Memphis Grizzlies, going 9 of 15 from the field and 4 of 7 from deep.

This is the team Kerr always has wanted to be: Fast, feisty and full of junkyard dogs welcoming a date that can turn disastrous for any player expecting to have a big scoring night. That’s when the Warriors are at their best, and they’re embracing that exact identity for the months to come.

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