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Nylon Calculus: The Golden State Warriors are heating up

By Todd Whitehead

November 7, 2016; Oakland, CA, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30, left) celebrates after making a three-point basket against the New Orleans Pelicans during the fourth quarter at Oracle Arena. The Warriors defeated the Pelicans 116-106. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
November 7, 2016; Oakland, CA, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30, left) celebrates after making a three-point basket against the New Orleans Pelicans during the fourth quarter at Oracle Arena. The Warriors defeated the Pelicans 116-106. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports /
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After spending the summer pairing the best shooter in the NBA with the second-best shooter in the NBA, Golden State began their season with some unexpectedly poor shooting performances. Last year’s premier perimeter team has already turned in multiple nights with sub-30 percent shooting from deep. The following numbers can actually be found in Warriors’ box scores from this season, under the section “3-point shooting”: 7-for-33, 8-for-29, 5-for-32…yeesh.

The normally-splashy, Klay Thompson, has been under particular scrutiny after his surprisingly cold start to the season — 11-for-53 (21 percent) on 3-pointers during his first seven games, including back-to-back 0-for-6 and 0-for-7 outings. But Klay’s hardly the only Warrior who has struggled with his 3-point shot early on. Draymond Green started a similarly putrid 4-for-19 (21 percent) during the first seven games, including four 0-for’s. Andre Iguodala has been even worse from outside — just 3-for-17 (18 percent)!

Not even Stephen Curry has been immune to the Warriors 3-point shooting woes. Against the Los Angeles Lakers last Friday, Curry failed to hit a 3-pointer for the first time in 157 games, finishing with a startling 0-for-10 mark from behind the arc.

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But this week, it has looked like the Warriors are finally starting to find their groove, as the team has shot 46% or better from three-point land in each of its last three contests. Both Dray and Klay have sunk seven threes over the course of the past two games, on 10 and 12 attempts, respectively.

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the-warriors-are-heating-up /

So, the Warriors, collectively, seem to be “heating up” but Curry?

He’s on Fire!

Curry broke the single-game 3-point record on Monday against the New Orleans Pelicans, hitting an astounding 13-out-of-17 triples (76 percent). He has followed that historic performance with a ho-hum 11-for-21 (52 percent) stat line in his last two games combined

One signature of the Warriors menacing style of play is the threat of a quick barrage of 3-point buckets. More than anybody else in NBA history, Curry has a knack for piling up a series of 3-point baskets in quick succession. For example, take a look at the 2015-16 leaders for the number of quarters with three or more 3-point baskets.

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hot-quarters /

Curry had an insane 53 “hot quarters” with three or more 2-pointers, more than double his second-placed Splash Brother, Thompson, who had 26. Draymond led the other Warriors with four hot quarters from deep, followed by Brandon Rush (2), Harrison Barnes (1), Ian Clark (1), and Leandro Barbosa (1). All together that’s 84 hot quarters — an average of more than one per game.

Durant, for his part, was the 11th-most prolific 3-point shooter in the league last year with the Oklahoma City Thunder, but he only had four long-range hot quarters.

This year, Steph is racking up the hot quarters once again and is already way out in front of the field. During his record-breaking 3-point performance, Curry spread his threes around pretty much evenly — 3, 3, 4, and 3 — over the four quarters. As a result, he notched four hot quarters…in a single game!! In last night’s win over the Denver Nuggets, Curry pitched in two more hot quarters (three 3-pointers in the first quarter and four in the third) to bring his season total to seven. No other player in the NBA has more than two hot quarters so far this year.

Likewise, Klay also found himself “bringing the Woo” for a moment against the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday. He jump-started the Warriors win with four first-quarter 3s. The first quarter was Klay’s preferred hot quarter last season as well, accounting for 9 of 26 such instances.

KD is the one other Warrior to post a hot quarter this season; it came as he splashed in 4-of-6 from deep during the second period of his soul-crushing 39-point reunion with Oklahoma City.

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Steph is on pace (64) to best his absurd mark of 53 hot quarters from last season. While the rest of the Warriors are still heating up, it seems like only a matter of time before KD and Klay start pitching in on the total, too. With Ian Clark, Pat McCaw, and Draymond Green each likely to have his own moments as a man-on-fire at points during the season, the Warriors have a legit chance to approach something like 100 hot quarters, collectively, by the end of the year.

Data on Hot Quarters was obtained using the Shot Finder tool from Basketball-Reference

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