Despite their high scoring, the Golden State Warriors have a lack of scoring threats.
The Warriors currently land at third in total points per game despite the fact they only have two guys scoring at a high level and shooting efficiently. Nearly the entire offense has been carried by the tandem of Stephen Curry and Andrew Wiggins this season.
Thompson once again has been a slight problem here. He is still scoring 15.1 points per game but is putting up by far the worst shooting splits of his career. He is seeing career lows from the field, from three, from inside the arc, and only barely beating out his career-low from the free throw line. He simply hasn’t been good this season, even if you can give some leeway with the fact he didn’t scrimmage during the offseason.
Even Jordan Poole is shooting slightly better to start the season. For a player who is being dragged on social media for shooting poorly from the field, he should not be shooting at a higher percentage than the guy starting ahead of him. At times Poole has even impacted the defense in a more positive way, albeit both are at a low level.
Poole needs more minutes to impact the offense and he needs to be taking more shots than Thompson. The latter should also not be shooting more per game than Wiggins, the second leading scorer for the Warriors who is shooting nearly 50% for the season.
Outside of Curry, Wiggins, and at times Poole, the Warriors have had struggled for weapons offensively, and it has cost them multiple games. The Cavaliers will no doubt try to use this to their advantage.
The Warriors will be hoping this could all turn tonight and use ultimately use this game to propel them to a winning streak. However, all signs suggest it’ll be a tough ask against their former rivals in the Cavaliers.