Warriors vs. Nuggets Preseason: 3 Things to Watch For
By Greg Chin
The Golden State Warriors will play their fourth preseason game against the Denver Nuggets today (4pm PST), and fans will be excited to watch the Warriors at home after what has been an impressive first three outings against the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers (twice).
And with that in mind, here are three things you should keep an eye on during the Nuggets game.
1. Can the Warriors keep up their hot start?
The Warriors have won each of their past three games by a margin of 24.67 points per game. They’ve looked clinical and efficient on offense. Gone are the days of the slow, stagnant isolation-heavy style that former coach Mark Jackson used to employ.
Instead, Warriors’ fans will be treated to the free-flowing, ball-moving motion style offense that coach Steve Kerr has implemented.
And boy oh boy, is it a treat to watch.
The shooters seem to have more separation to shoot, and we’ve even seen some elements of the triangle offense incorporated into the offense. It’s a safe bet that the Warriors will finish higher than their 12th placed offensive efficiency ranking last season this time round.
The Nuggets, who are 1-3 in their preseason so far, could present a bigger challenge than the (lottery-bound) Lakers. Much has been said about the porous Lakers’ defense, so it will be interesting to see if the Warriors can keep up their offensive clinic against the Nuggets.
2. Battle of the Bigs
The strength of this Denver team lies in the rotation of their big men. With Kenneth Faried, Javale McGee (who is currently out injured), Timofey Mozgov, J.J. Hickson, and Jusuf Nurkic part of the bigs rotation, Denver has one of the strongest frontcourt rotations in the league.
In comparison, the Warriors only have Andrew Bogut, Draymond Green, Marreese Speights, and David Lee to call on tonight. Of those four players, only Bogut is a legitimate center.
An interesting battle will be on tonight, as the Warriors are infamous for their lack of big men. Their backup center, Festus Ezeli is out again with an injury (again). Despite the lack of big men, the Warriors still finished fifth in the league in rebounding last season. Denver was second.
How will the Warriors fare in the battle of the bigs tonight? Will the lack of a healthy backup center prove to be detrimental to the Warriors in the long run?
3. The Barnes-Iguodala Experiment
Prior to the Warriors’ last game against the Lakers, coach Kerr made an announcement that surprised a few of the Warriors’ fans: he was starting Harrison Barnes instead of Andre Iguodala. He even made it clear that the decision to do so wasn’t due to Iguodala’s broken nose, but rather an experiment in seeing whether Iggy could play as a point-forward off the bench.
The experiment provided a few interesting results, most notably of which was Iggy’s eight assists, zero turnovers performance, but it’s still too early to be declaring the move a success.
It’s well documented that Barnes struggled in the sixth man role last season, and the Warriors’ bench was a tragedy offensively. The team tried several candidates in the backup point guard position, but the fact that none of them remain on the team is indicative of the results.
Having Iguodala coming off the bench in a point-forward role solves both of those issues. In theory, at least.
Two games is hardly a big enough sample size for us to draw a proper conclusion, but we might be one step closer to deciding if it’s a worthwhile move by the end of the night.