Basically all season long, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr has hammered away at the importance of protecting the ball. When his team wins the turnover battle, they've been far and away a much more formidable team.
While Kerr would bring up the team's need to limit turnovers incessantly, it really didn't bring about better results. However, the last few weeks Kerr has employed a different strategy.
In a recent press conference, Kerr said that he has not brought up turnovers at all which has, somewhat counterintuitively, led to the team limiting the sort of needless giveaways that's resulted in a number of losses this season.
Steve Kerr has helped limit Warriors turnovers by not talking about them
Kerr jokingly explained the turnaround, stating, "It’s a great life lesson. Ignore all your problems. Never acknowledge them. Don’t look in the mirror.”
Of course, right when the Warriors started doing something right they were unable to sustain it which has really been the story of their entire season to date. On Sunday night against the Atlanta Hawks, the team's old turnover ways resurfaced as they gave it away 16 times, while the visitors only turned it over nine times and unsurprisingly won the game.
Golden State have turned the ball over more than most teams this season, averaging 15 per game which is one of the highest rates in the NBA. With the Warriors where they are right now as a team, they just cannot sustain that and hope to have any degree of consistent success.
Golden State has always been a team that turns the ball over at a high rate. The style of offense the team likes to run through star guard Stephen Curry often involves a lot of passing and ball movement, giving the opposing defense more chances for deflections and steals.
Back in the dynasty years when the Warriors were practically overflowing with talent, they could afford to turn the ball over more because Curry would go off, or Klay Thompson would have a big game, or maybe Kevin Durant would do something incredible.
Now, the team simply doesn't have that same level of talent, making the margin for error much smaller. Curry is still doing special things, but outside of the 2x MVP the Warriors do not have a reliable scorer who can bail them out if they're sloppy with the ball.
Kerr's strategy of ignoring the issue has actually worked in the short-term, but a game where turnovers rear their ugly head again always feels around the corner with this team.