The Weekly Dish

A look at where the Warriors have been and where they are headed as they pass the quarter pole of the season.

For the week of Monday, Dec. 5 – Sunday, Dec. 11

With 17 wins in their first 20 games, the Warriors are essentially one quarter of the way through the 2016-17 regular season, which offers a good point to assess where the Dubs have been, and where they are headed.

First, the big picture. Golden State has occupied the top spot in the NBA standings for more than a week now, and haven’t given many indications that they’ll slow down any time soon. Historically, the Warriors are in a tremendous spot, as they are in prime position to make the playoffs for the fifth-straight year. Over the last 10 full NBA seasons (excluding the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign), 85 percent of teams in playoff positioning at the quarter pole have gone on to make the postseason. Additionally, no team at least 11 games over .500 after 20 games has gone on to miss the playoffs over that same span. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, but let’s just say that at the very least, the Warriors didn’t put themselves behind the eight ball with their play in the first quarter of the season.

Once we get into the specifics, however, that assessment may be putting it a little too lightly. The statistics to date confirm what our eyes have witnessed on a nightly basis – that being, the Warriors’ offense is unparalleled in the current state of the game, and on pace to rank amongst the most potent and prolific scoring machines in the history of the league. We can focus purely on the points, where Golden State is currently head and shoulders above the rest of the NBA in their consistent output.

The Warriors are coming off arguably their best offensive performance of the season in their home win over the Suns on Saturday in which they finished 49-of-78 from the field (62.8 percent) and 14-of-21 (66.7 percent) from three-point land, both of which qualified as season-bests; in fact, their field goal percentage was the best by any team in a game this season. It marked the second time this season in which the Warriors shot at least 60.0 percent from the field, a task no other NBA team has managed to accomplish even once. Their 138 points were the second-most scored by any team in a game this season, trailing only the 149 they scored in a victory over the Lakers last month. The offensive outburst increased Golden State’s scoring average to 119.1 points per game on the year, which would put them on pace to become the highest scoring NBA team since the Denver Nuggets averaged 119.9 during the 1990-91 season.

That Nuggets team was not a balanced one, however, and ranked dead-last in points allowed that season and posted the worst defensive rating in league history; this year, Golden State sits near the middle of the pack in points allowed, but their average doesn’t tell the whole story, as it is inflated by their pace of play (third-fastest in NBA) and, frankly, their frequency of fourth quarter blowouts. In fact, you have to go all the way back to the 1984-85 season to find the last team to finish above .500 while averaging at least 119 points per game (ironically, also Denver).

The Dubs' defense has improved considerably since the first few weeks of the season, as the Warriors have allowed 5.2 fewer points per 100 possessions in their most recent 10 games than they did in their first 10 to begin the year. They’re one of only three teams to currently rank in the top-ten of both offensive and defensive rating, and their net rating of plus-12.8 points per 100 possessions is on pace to be the second-best in NBA history, behind only the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (+13.1).

Now, granted, all of this comes with the huge and inarguable disclaimer that there are still 62 games remaining in the Warriors’ regular season, and a lot could and very well may change between now and the end of the season. Every season is its own animal, replete with ebbs and flows that no team is exempt from, and while the Dubs have certainly played well up to this point, they’d be the first to tell you that they haven’t won anything yet. So we can and should acknowledge that there is still quite a long way to go, but at the very least, it’s worth recognizing that Golden State is trending in the right direction.

With apologies to several other worthy candidates, I employed a general strategy often used by Golden State to determine this week’s Spotlight designation – that being, when in doubt, trust Steph. Over the last two seasons in which he’s the lone NBA player to garner the league’s MVP award, Curry has frequently put up stat lines that overwhelm and boggle the mind. While he didn’t necessarily have one of those this past week, he did have a tremendous week for anyone otherwise classified as a mere mortal. Curry ranked second on the team with averages of 26.9 points and 5.7 assists per game last week while shooting 49.6 percent from the field and 42.4 percent from three-point range.

On Saturday, Curry scored 20 points in the third quarter, his second-most points in any quarter this season and his 13th 20-point quarter since the start of last season; no other player in the league has more than four such quarters over that same span. He’s now made a league-leading total of 84 three-pointers on the season, 21 more than the next closest competitor and 25 more than fellow Splash Brother Klay Thompson (59, 3rd in NBA), who continues to combine with Curry to form the sharpest-shooting backcourt in the game today. In that same victory over the Suns, Curry was 5-of-7 on three-pointers while Thompson shot 6-of-7 from beyond the arc, marking the 22nd time in their careers that both Splash Brothers have made at least five treys in the same game. To put that in context, consider this: no other two teammates have more than four games of that kind.

In the first section, I highlighted Golden State’s success up to this point, while acknowledging the road ahead could still be filled with bumpy moments. Well, the latter half of that postulation is about to be put to the test, as the Warriors are about to embark on perhaps their toughest week of the entire season. It’s a daunting one in both quantity and quality, as the Dubs will play a total of five games in the week ahead, and all of them are of the challenging variety. Their first four games come against teams currently at or above .500, and their final four matchups of the week come away from the friendly confines of Oracle Arena.

First, the Dubs open up the week by closing out their current homestand against the visiting Indiana Pacers tonight, after which Golden State will depart on a five-game road trip that will take them from Los Angeles to New Orleans in just seven days. The roadie begins in tremendously tough fashion with what has to be one of the tougher back-to-backs in the entire Association, first at the Clippers on Wednesday before traveling to Utah to take on the Jazz on Thursday night. Then, following a travel day, Golden State will endure their second back-to-back sequence of the trip, beginning in Memphis against the Grizzlies on Friday and concluding on Saturday in Minnesota against the young Timberwolves. It’s as grueling of a weekly slate as they come, and Golden State will certainly be put to the test as they attempt to rack up as many wins as possible against five teams that all figure to be in the playoff conversation down the stretch.