The Week that Was:
A light week that certainly looked different now than it would have with their opponents at full strength.
In the end, the Warriors finished off a perfect home stand with wins over the Pacers without Paul George and the Cavaliers without LeBron.
The Soapbox: The Four Factors, Revisited
In early December, I used this space to talk about Dean Oliver’s Four Factors, which tries to estimate different components of the game that are important for actually winning games. Those factors are: shooting (using Effective Field Goal %), turnovers (using Turnover %), rebounding (Offensive Rebounding % since the reverse is Defensive) and free throws (Free Throw Attempt rate).
What makes the Four Factors so interesting is that they apply on both ends of the floor, normally evaluated in terms of how well a team does them on offense and how well they prevent an opponent from succeeding at them on defense.
Here is where the Warriors stand right now:
Shooting: In early December I wrote that “if you want to explain their success in a single sentence, look no further” than this stat since the team ran the insane double of leading the NBA in both offensive eFG% and opponent eFG%. Right now they still hold the top spot on offense and are functionally tied with Portland for #1 on defense. Absolutely astonishing, especially considering Andrew Bogut missed nearly that entire stretch. That could also bolster my friend Ethan Sherwood Strauss’ case for Draymond Green as Defensive Player of the Year.
Turnovers: As expected, the Dubs have improved here, going from 28th to 21st. We know about their problems here. Even better, they have made a similar jump on the defensive end by jumping from 13th in early December to 10th as of this writing. I am intrigued to see how Andrew Bogut’s return affects both of these numbers because we will see less of the crazy switching with Draymond at Center but more solid lineups overall.
Rebounding: Still not a strength but less of a weakness than before even with the team’s best rebounder (Bogut) missing substantial time. The Warriors moved up from 27th to 23rd in Offensive Rebound % with a justifiable downgrade from 18th to 22nd in defensive rebounding. A stretch with the full complement of big men would give us a much better idea of whether this team can show more strength on the boards without sacrificing anywhere else. I think they can.
Free Throws: Still the biggest weakness among the Four Factors and unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. It would be nice to turn this around but nearly every team has components they do not excel at and there is zero shame in that. At present, Golden State is 25th in Free Throw Attempt Rate and a respectable 15th in opponent FTA rate, meaning they actually improved on that defensively (comparatively, at least) in the last month.
The Week to Come:
One of the stranger weeks of the season geographically.
The Warriors started out in Salt Lake City and beat the Jazz in their first road game of 2015 and then come home for the tail end of a back-to-back against Miami. They immediately turn around and head to Oklahoma City against a Thunder team looking to save face after getting whupped at Oracle last week. The Dubs then play their fourth game in five nights in Houston before getting a single day to return home for the Nuggets.
With at least one schedule loss in there and two great opponents on the road, I am expecting 4-1, but 3-2 would be totally justifiable.