Golden State Warriors Skidding Without Kevin Durant

The Golden State Warriors aren’t winning games anymore, as the loss of Kevin Durant is clearly taking a toll on the Dubs.

The Golden State Warriors are 2-4 over their last six games. In the first of those six games, Kevin Durant left with an injury just minutes into the contest, meaning the last six games have (largely) been the best look we’ve gotten at the Warriors sans Durant.

The results have not been good. The only wins since KD went out were over the New York Knicks and the Atlanta Hawks, and both of those victories were by less than 10 points.

Predictably, the finger-pointing has already begun among NBA fans. Whenever a team underachieves, it’s somebody’s fault. In this case, many around the league has determined Stephen Curry is to blame for the Dubs’ current skid.

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It’s true that Curry hasn’t been fantastic. He’s still leading the team in scoring, but at 25.3 points per game over the last six contests Curry is only scoring about half a point more than he has over the course of the entire season.

The idea of Curry returning to MVP, world-killer form to replace the loss of Durant was floated often in the days proceeding KD’s injury, but it was never completely feasible. Durant scores 25.3 points per game this season.

Even if Curry had gone back to averaging 30 points per game like he did last season, that’s only replacing one-fifth of the scoring Durant added to the Warriors. Where are the other 20 points going to come from?

That’s a question Golden State has no answer for. The Warriors are averaging 102.3 points per game over their last six contests, compared to 116.8 points per game on the season. The latter mark ranks first in the NBA, while the former is what the 23rd-ranked Miami Heat score per game.

Losing Kevin Durant is never easy — just look at the Oklahoma City Thunder this season compared to last. Still, Oklahoma City had more time to retool their team, and they had a cyborg in Russell Westbrook who is more than happy to do everything himself.

That’s not how the Warriors are constructed. This team is at its best when the ball moves freely and the defense is inundated with scoring threats, so that Curry and Klay Thompson can still get open despite being two of the best shooters ever.

Golden State’s formula doesn’t work right without the multiple threats part of the equation. The Warriors are losing because defenses simply aren’t worried about many of the players they trot out anymore. Curry and Thompson are obviously the first and second priority for the opposition to guard.

After that, the drop-off is steep without Durant. Draymond Green is next up on per game scoring over the past six games with 11.5 points per game. After Draymond it’s Andre Iguodala up next with 10.2, followed by Zaza Pachulia with 7.8 and Patrick McCaw with 7.3. No other Warriors are scoring more than five points per game over the last six games.

Last season, the 73-10 Warriors had 10 players score at least seven points per game. Seven of those 10 players shot at least 35 percent from three-point territory. Over their last six games, this year’s Dubs have two players scoring at least seven points per game while shooting 35 percent from deep: Iguodala and McCaw. They’re combined for just 12 made threes in that stretch, or one made three from each of them per game.

There are two problems that feed into each other plaguing the Dubs right now. Curry and Thompson aren’t playing well, and they don’t have much help. Without the presence of other threats, teams don’t care if the Splash Brothers combine for 50 points each night. If they’re going to get there inefficiently, all the better for the opposition.

Since Durant went down, just one Warrior besides Curry and Thompson has scored 15 points or more in a single game. Iguodala did it against the Hawks, when he carried Golden State to the victory.

The difference between the problems is that one of them was expected. Worrying about the Dubs’ lack of depth was a logical reaction to Durant’s injury, considering all the players the Warriors lost in the pursuit of KD.

Steph Curry is missing a ton of wide-open threes. @tomhaberstroh pic.twitter.com/kPBFzyNjJ4
— Jade H. (@Jade_Hoye) March 11, 2017

Curry and Thompson missing threes — especially open ones — couldn’t be anticipated. Those two being less than great is not an option for Golden State right now. With Durant around, a bad game from either — or even both — of the Splash Bros could be hidden by his excellence.

Without him, the Warriors don’t have any true scoring threats outside of Curry and Thompson. If one or both of them struggles now, Golden State has no way to win aside from random Andre Iguodala outbursts.

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With both of their healthy stars shooting 27 percent from three over their last six games, it’s no wonder the Warriors have struggled. The one game in that stretch they both played well was against the Knicks–the only victory in this stretch besides the aforementioned Iguodala explosion against Atlanta.

Even with both Splash Brothers playing at a high level, wins aren’t guaranteed against good teams anymore. If Curry and Thompson combine for 60, some combination of Draymond, Iguodala, McCaw, Pachulia, David West, Matt Barnes, Ian Clark and JaVale McGee need to put up 56 points between them for Golden State to get to their season average.

Not all of those guys play significant minutes every night, and none of them aside from Draymond and Iguodala can be relied on for more than 10 points a night. Good defense means the Dubs can afford to score less, but they’re not a good enough defensive team to win by barely cracking 100 points.

Next: 2017 NBA Trade Deadline: Grades For All 30 Teams

The Warriors with Kevin Durant were ending games by halftime. The Warriors without him need to fight for every single point to have a shot at victory. Holding on to the first seed in the West will take Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson playing like they did last season, in addition to some other players stepping up in the absence of one of the best scorers in league history.

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