Milwaukee 138, Golden State 99
Another nationally televised game, another trip to the woodshed for the Golden State Warriors. After getting smacked around 125-99 by the Brooklyn Nets, Golden State Warriors chased that by taking a 138-99 shellacking courtesy the Milwaukee Bucks.
Just two games in and there some glaring problems for this team. First, they cannot throw the ball in the ocean through the first two games. Against Brooklyn they were ,as a team, connecting on just 37.4% from the floor, including 10-33 from three-point land.
They actually shot the ball even worse against the Bucks, shooting just 34.3% from the floor, including a frigid 22.2 (10-45) from the land of three.
This is a make-or-miss league and they have mastered the missing part. Outside of Stephen Curry , and even he is a measly 13-38 from the floor in the first two contests, they don’t have shot makers and it is already showing. Guys like Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre Jr have shown the ability to put the ball in the basket, but not at a high level, Wiggins is a career 44% shooter and Oubre 43% on even lower volume than that of Wiggins. With the two also being also being below average three-point shooters ( Wiggins at 33% and Oubre 32.6% ) meaning the space that is absolutely vital for the ball movement, player movement based offense Golden State runs is compromised. The rest of the ball club has not be much better with the only two players on the roster who have shot 50% or better on more than seven attempts through the first two games was James Wiseman, who shot 7-13 against the Nets and Bard Wanamaker who went 4-7 versus the Bucks. With the injury to Klay Thompson , both Wiggins and Oubre Jr are now going to be forced into more prominent roles in the offence. While both of them are nice players, particularly Wiggins who has all the physical tools to be a great player but hasn’t put it together, you could lock both of them in a gym from now until the sun goes supernova and neither of them would be able to come close to give this offense what Klay does. The rest of the roster is not littered with guys who have anything that resembles consistent shooting prowess so save some miraculous roster shake up or players on that team beginning to playing out of their minds, there seems to be no feasible solution to the Warriors issues.
The pick of James Wiseman seems to be one that will bear fruit but it remains to be seen if he can be a contributor to a ballclub who just a few weeks ago, had aspirations of returning to title contention. If the Warriors cannot find a solution for their issues, the losses will continue to mount and they will find themselves staring at ping pong balls in the summer once again.
