Steph Curry's mere presence can mask so much mediocrity. As long as he's on court, the Golden State Warriors' offense crackles with possibility. The threat of Curry getting the ball with a few inches of space keeps any defense in permanent panic, and he is masterful at using his teammates as screeners and passers to pry open what little space he needs. The threes splash, and the offense looks like a dream.
As soon as the greatest shooter ever walks to the bench, that illusion dissipates. It quickly becomes clear that the other Warriors on the floor have a collective vertical leap of 80 inches and 1.5 functional jump shots, and cannot actually pool together their skills to make the ball go into the hoop. Curry made magic with them, but without him, they are totally inert. They might as well be Easter Island statues plunked on the court for him to use as screens. It's a testament to Curry's singularity, and how far from contention the rest of Golden State's roster is. Perhaps there is no greater stylistic divergence in the NBA, depending on whether a given player is on or off the floor.
When Curry hurt his right quad during Wednesday's loss to the Houston Rockets, it guaranteed that we were going to see a lot more of that second, uglier Warriors team. The severity of the Curry on-off is borne out not just stylistically, but statistically. Before Saturday night's game against the New Orleans Pelicans, ESPN's Anthony Slater observed that the Warriors had an offensive rating of 118.2 with Curry on the floor, and 105.2 with him off the floor. That would be the difference between an offense ranked sixth or 30th in the NBA. Though Curry's injury was reportedly less severe than it initially seemed, he'll be sitting out at least a week. When asked in press how they'd cope in his absence, head coach Steve Kerr said that they'd have to play fast, get stops, and hunt easy buckets in transition.
Halfway through Pelicans-Warriors on Saturday, none of that was happening. After one quarter, playing against the 25th-ranked New Orleans defense, the Warriors had only managed to score 17 points. At halftime, Golden State led, 42-38. It was, by some margin, the worst basketball I've seen this season. With Curry, the Warriors can still play some brisk and harmonious offense. Without him, it's Jimmy Butler grift sludge. It's a Jonathan Kuminga fadeaway line-driving into the front rim. It's crossing half court and flowing right into the Draymond Green/Pat Spencer two-man game.
Every time I looked up, some new horrible thing was happening. No Golden State player could reliably create an advantage against his defender. The 36-year-old Butler, their best candidate for that sorely needed role, suffered two hard falls in the first half, and I had no idea how the Warriors could realistically proceed from there. They kept chucking threes, hoping that might alter their fate, but the guy who was good at chucking them was, of course, nowhere to be found. As a result, the Warriors shot 12-of-47 from three in this game. Green alone bricked all seven of his attempts, mostly of the wide-open variety. The team also shot only 20 free throws to the Pelicans' 34.
None of the numbers in the box score tell a story of Warriors triumph, but triumph they did. The Warriors won, 104-96, to improve to 11-10. It happened in a nasty, unglamorous way, with some excellent defense to force turnovers, a few opportunistic buckets from Gary Payton II cutting to the hoop, and the minimum viable dose of Butler grit and grift. Thanks to a 12-0 run to close out the fourth quarter, the Warriors managed to vanquish a Pelicans offense that was missing its second- and third-leading scorers, and put its faith, such as it exists, in Saddiq Bey hero ball down the stretch. Having narrowly defeated the worst team in the Western Conference, Golden State must now prepare for Tuesday's game against its best: the 19-1 Oklahoma City Thunder. Perhaps the presence of Steph Curry's younger brother can provide something by association.
