© Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
OAKLAND – If you love watching great basketball, tonight was a perfect night to skip. Without Draymond Green and Stephen Curry, the Warriors played the sort of sloppy basketball you were likely to see at Oracle Arena 10, or even 20 years ago.
Still, the Warriors were playing the Atlanta Hawks, a very bad basketball team, and it didn’t take much for them to secure a 110-103 win.
Here are three takeaways from tonight’s game:
Durant leads way to ugly win with suspended Draymond Green, injured Steph Curry
It’s been an odd 24 hours for the back-to-back defending champions. They lost a game to the Los Angeles Clippers in overtime that featured a spat between Kevin Durant and Draymond Green that saw Green suspended by the Warriors tonight without pay. He reportedly called out Durant for his impending free agency and called him a ‘bitch’ multiple times according to another report.
While Durant shot inefficiently from the field tonight (9-for-23) and went 0-for-3 from 3-point range, he was immaculate from the free-throw line, where he was 11-for-11. He finished with 29 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists.
Still, for a team that’s won three out of the last four championships, the Warriors played at a pedestrian level. They came down to the level of a Hawks team that came into tonight with a 3-10 record, sitting firmly in the camp of teams likely tanking for one of Duke’s absurd freshmen in Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett and Cameron Reddish.
For most of the game, the Hawks hung tight with the Warriors, holding them to 20 points in the first quarter and 49 points in the first half. Since the start of the 2014-15 season, the Warriors have scored 20 or less points in the first quarter just 22 times in 343 games (6.4 percent) and less than 50 points in a half 59 times (17.2 percent).
It’s a performance that makes evident just how clunky the Warriors offense can be without one of Green or Curry leading it.
Jonas Jerebko provides valuable spark
Jerebko has been consistently solid this whole season, but when he gets starters’ minutes, he’s been fantastic. Tonight, taking Green’s starting spot at the four, Jerebko racked up 14 points and 13 rebounds along with a 4-for-7 shooting performance from 3-point range.
He played 25 minutes tonight and provided consistency in a game that often lacked it. He has rarely taken poor shots this season, and works extremely hard on both ends of the floor.
Trae Young, the next Steph Curry? Ehh, not quite
Coming into tonight, Trae Young was 23-of-81 from 3-point range. He finished the night 2-for-12 from the field and 0-for-5 from three, albeit with 9 assists and five rebounds in addition to 4 points. That gives Young now a 26.7 shooting percentage from three on the season.
In Curry’s rookie season, he shot 43.7 percent from three. In his career, Curry’s never shot worse than 41.1 percent from 3-point range in a season.
Granted, you have to assume Young’s numbers will improve as his shot selection improves (at least theoretically, it will) and he becomes more comfortable with the NBA 3-point line. Still, while full of potential and ability, he’s not demonstrated anywhere near the level of poise or efficiency that Curry’s demonstrated throughout his career.
There’s no doubt that Young has the potential to be an All-Star caliber player in his career, but the comparisons to Curry are overly simplistic and without merit. While it’s easy to see two fantastic passing, cutting point guards who shoot from absurd distances and compare the younger one to the veteran, the numbers don’t match up.