Player grades: Warriors vs. Spurs
Assessing every Golden State player’s performance from the team’s 114-111 loss to San Antonio.
By now you probably know that the Golden State Warriors suffered an inexcusable loss on Wednesday night, falling 114-111 to the San Antonio Spurs after former Warrior Harrison Barnes drained a buzzer-beating three.
It was ugly and, frankly, a bit embarrassing. And unfortunately I now have to grade the players who made it happen. As always, grades are based on my expectations for each player, with a “B” grade representing the average performance for that player.
But let’s just be clear: as a whole, the team gets an “F” for this performance. It wasn’t their worst performance of the year, and not even close. But it was the most inexcusable loss given the importance of the game, and the opponent they were facing.
Note: True-shooting percentage (TS) is as scoring efficiency metric that accounts for threes and free throws. Entering Wednesday’s games, league-average TS was 57.6%.
Moses Moody
31 minutes, 7 points, 8 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 turnover, 1 foul, 3-for-11 shooting, 1-for-7 threes, 31.8% TS, -5
A rough shooting game for Moody, and also wasn’t his best defensive showing, as all of San Antonio’s guards seemed to have big games. Really liked his aggression and energy, especially when crashing the glass.
Grade: C-
Jimmy Butler III
38 minutes, 28 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, 1 turnover, 1 foul, 5-for-8 shooting, 2-for-2 threes, 16-for-17 free throws, 90.4% TS, -9
An outrageously efficient scoring game for Butler. Don’t let the plus/minus fool you: he did his job, especially when Steph Curry was on the bench. And he was far and away the team’s best player in the fourth quarter ... maybe their only good player. Not his best defensive game, but when you score 28 points on 90.4% true shooting with seven assists and just one turnover, you’ve done your job and then some.
Grade: A
Post-game bonus: Worst plus/minus on the team.
Draymond Green
33 minutes, 13 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, 3 turnovers, 4 fouls, 4-for-7 shooting, 2-for-4 threes, 3-for-4 free throws, 74.2% TS, -6
Kind of an odd Draymond game. Very nice statistically. And he had some outrageous, almost game-saving defensive plays. Yet he also seemed to disappear for large stretches, including on defense. Definitely wasn’t the reason they lost, but for how nice his stats were, it doesn’t feel like he had as much of an impact as you would expect. It just felt like he made some really costly errors.
Grade: B-
Post-game bonus: Led the team in rebounds and assists.
Brandin Podziemski
33 minutes, 7 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 turnovers, 2 fouls, 3-for-11 shooting, 1-for-5 threes, 31.8% TS, 0 plus/minus
Podziemski has been an offensive force over the past two weeks or so. Not in this game though, unfortunately.
Grade: C-
Steph Curry
37 minutes, 30 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 turnover, 12-for-24 shooting, 5-for-14 threes, 1-for-1 free throws, 61.4% TS, +13
A vintage Warriors game, in the wrong way. They outscored the Spurs by 13 points in the 36:35 that Curry played in, and they were outscored by 16 points in the 11:25 that he sat.
It wasn’t Steph’s best game, but the Warriors played well when he was on the court and he was the reason for it. It just wasn’t quite enough.
Grade: A-
Post-game bonus: Led the team in points, best plus/minus on the team
Jonathan Kuminga
18 minutes, 12 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 turnover, 2 fouls, 5-for-10 shooting, 1-for-4 threes, 1-for-2 free throws, 55.1% TS, -2
Kuminga made some good things happen by attacking the rim, both with and without the ball. But he struggled to have much of an impact. It wasn’t a good defensive game for him and he didn’t always keep the ball moving.
Grade: C
Buddy Hield
26 minutes, 12 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 4-for-13 shooting, 4-for-10 threes, 46.2% TS, -1
Hield had a few big shots early, and then got a little too trigger-happy. Not always the best shot selection, and not a lot of defense, either.
Grade: C
Kevon Looney
12 minutes, 2 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block, 2 fouls, 2-for-2 free throws, 113.6% TS, 0 plus/minus
Pretty solid Looney minutes. It wasn’t really a matchup where they needed a traditional center, but he did some good stuff when he was on the court.
Grade: B+
Gui Santos
8 minutes, 0 points, 1 rebound, 1 steal, 1 foul, 0-for-2 shooting, 0-for-2 threes, 0-for-2 free throws, 0.0% TS, -8
Very rough game for Gui. Shake it off.
Grade: D
Trayce Jackson-Davis
3 minutes, 0 points, 3 rebounds, 1 turnover, 2 fouls, +3
TJD got a little bit of run with Quinten Post sidelined by an illness. It didn’t go as well as it went the day before, but he also didn’t get many minutes.
Grade: Incomplete
Wednesday’s DNP-CDs: Taran Armstrong, Braxton Key, Kevin Knox II, Pat Spencer, Jackson Rowe
Wednesday’s inactives: Gary Payton II, Quinten Post