SAN FRANCISCO — The morning after the ball dropped, the Warriors used part of their first practice of the New Year to hold shooting competitions.
“Sometimes you just mix it up in practice, go away from your formula and do something different,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “That’s what today was about.”
No one is expecting a light practice and fun shooting contests to be the antidote to Golden State’s current slide. But they are apt given how poorly they’ve shot the ball recently.
In the Warriors’ first 16 games, they shot 37.9% from behind the 3-point arc. In their next 16, that number dipped to 33.8%, ranking 23rd in the NBA in that span.
Perhaps the easiest way to explain how the Warriors can start 12-3 and then go 4-13 is simple shooting regression. You may have heard, it’s a make or miss league. When the Warriors were rolling, they were hitting all sorts of shots and getting them from a variety of players. Since then, their gunners have shot blanks.
That might seem like a convenient, simplistic excuse. But in many ways, it’s reality.
Buddy Hield, smoking-hot to start the season, is in the midst of a brutal shooting slump. Dennis Schroder, despite hitting a massive 3 against Phoenix, has shot well below his season averages since joining the team. Reserve 3-point specialist Lindy Waters III is down to 32% on the year.
Even Steph Curry shot 40% overall and 36.2% from 3 in the month of December — well shy of the lofty standards he has established.
“I look at offensive flow,” Kerr said. “Are we getting good shots? Can we get better shots? You look at lineup combinations — who’s playing with whom. Sometimes you just look at the emotional side of it, the psychological side of it.”
On the shot quality front, the Warriors have slipped slightly. In December, they generated 18.9 “wide open” shots per game, as defined by field goal attempts with the nearest defender at least six feet away. That figure ranks 18th in the league and is two shy of their November performance.
Losing De’Anthony Melton to a season-ending injury (and then the trade for Schroder) has been the biggest event of the season so far. He was one of few two-way players on the roster who could also be dynamic with the ball in his hands.
Their defense was much better with Melton, which led to transition opportunities against backpedaling defenses. They played with more pace earlier in the season, which naturally lends itself to more open shots.
“We’re definitely shooting below expected,” Kerr said. “That number is showing up consistently. But I think on the film too, there are times we’re getting decent shots, not great shots. And when you’re a funk, you really need to get great shots.”
Knowing the Warriors don’t have as much reliable perimeter shooters stationed on the perimeter, defenses have packed the paint and sent multiple defenders at Curry, inviting anyone else to beat them.
The Warriors acquired Schroder at least partially to address all of that. A pick-and-roll initiator, he’s supposed to bring a different element to the offense while allowing Curry to operate off the ball more.
Schroder, though, has shot just 29.7% from the field as a Warrior, including 20.6% on 3s. He’s significantly less effective when defenders can comfortably go under screens against him without worrying about his outside shot.
Hield, meanwhile, is mired in one of the worst shooting slumps of his 10-year career. He scored zero and two points in his last two games and shot 2-for-21 (9.5%) from 3-point land in the last four contests of the calendar year. It’s the second-worst four-game shooting span of his career, better than only a 7% stretch in 2016. He looked completely lost against the Cavaliers, missing two point-blank layups along with all three of his 3s.
Hield is a bellwether. The Warriors are undefeated in games he scores at least 18 points but are 3-11 when he scores in single-digits.
“Nothing has changed with Buddy,” Jonathan Kuminga said. “No matter how bad or good he’s shooting, his energy is there. And I feel like he’s got that same mindset. It happens. We’re all not perfect. Sometimes you make shots, sometimes you (miss).
“One thing that sticks with Buddy is his joy. He came in today talking about how he got a new blicky. He was talking about how this past month, his blicky was trash. And he’s happy, you know? Him not shooting well is not throwing him off at all.”
Kerr said he hasn’t considered for a second decreasing Hield’s minutes or role. He believes in Hield’s track record as one of the game’s most accurate shooters and needs to play him so he can find a rhythm. The head coach also wants to give this current, tightened rotation a runway to prove itself, with Schroder starting and Kuminga leading second-unit groups as the featured option.
Yet while Hield’s confidence apparently isn’t shaken, that isn’t the case with everyone.
“All these guys are human,” Kerr said. “I know as a former player, it’s really easy to get into a rut and beat yourself up or lose confidence. And that’s all part of it, too.”
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