Player grades: Warriors vs. Heat

Well, the Golden State Warriors are officially slumping. The Dubs played better on Tuesday than they did over the weekend, but still lost 116-109 to the Miami Heat, running their losing streak to three games.

Some red pen needs to be broken out for this one, particularly for the bench (the starters played well!). As always, grades are weighted based on our expectations for each player, with a “B” representing the average result for that player.

Note: League-average true-shooting percentage (TS) entering Tuesday’s games was 56.9%.

Draymond Green

32 minutes, 5 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 1 turnover, 4 fouls, 2-for-3 shooting, 1-for-2 threes, 83.3% TS, +7

When the Warriors played the Heat last week, Jimmy Butler absolutely destroyed them. But that didn’t happen in this game, as Butler shot just 6-for-17 from the field (albeit with nine free throw attempts and eight assists).

Green played super strong defense on Butler and was far and away the team’s best player on that end of the court — no surprises there. But the biggest thing he did was only contribute one of the team’s 20 turnovers. Dray’s been a little bit of a turnover machine to start the year, and this was good to see.

Unfortunately, the Dubs are now 0-3 on the year when Dray makes a three, after going 20-1 last year in such outings.

Grade: B+

Andrew Wiggins

35 minutes, 21 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks, 1 turnover, 3 fouls, 8-for-12 shooting, 4-for-7 threes, 1-for-2 free throws, 81.5% TS, +8

Wiggins bounced back from an awful game on Sunday to play phenomenally well in this one. He was back to doing all the things that have made this such a great start to the season for him. Quick and decisive offense, strong defense, and aggression on the glass.

If you’re making a list of all the reasons the Warriors lost, Wiggins is very close to the bottom.

Grade: A

Kevon Looney

23 minutes, 4 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 3 fouls, 2-for-2 shooting, 100.0% TS, +11

Looney has cooled down a little bit since his blistering hot start to the season, but he’s still playing lovely, solid, consistent, and almost entirely error-free basketball. His defense was good on All-Star center Bam Adebayo, and he had a few excellent moments of passing the basketball.

It was a mostly noteless game though ... but not in a bad way!

Grade: B+

Post-game bonus: Led the team in plus/minus.

Steph Curry

35 minutes, 23 points, 13 rebounds, 13 assists, 1 steal, 5 turnovers, 3 fouls, 7-for-14 shooting, 4-for-10 threes, 5-for-5 free throws, 64.8% TS, +3

For the 12th time in his career (including the playoffs), Curry recorded a triple-double. And for just the second time in his career, the Warriors lost such a game.

Whoops.

You can poke tiny holes in Curry’s game if you want. He was a turnover artist on a day where the Dubs lost in large part due to sloppiness. His passing was majestic, but some fans perhaps wanted him to shoot more ... he took five fewer shots than Klay Thompson, just two more than Wiggins, and just three more than JaMychal Green.

But that’s picking nits when someone has 23, 13, and 13 with absurd efficiency and highlight flair.

Why is it that Curry, the Warriors best player, a global superstar, and Golden State’s oldest active player, seems to be the player who is trying the hardest?

Grade: A

Post-game bonus: Led the team in points, rebounds, and assists.

Klay Thompson

31 minutes, 19 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 4 turnovers, 1 foul, 7-for-19 shooting, 4-for-12 threes, 1-for-1 free throws, 48.9% TS, +6

Another tough shooting game for the second Splash brother, and you could see how hard Curry was working to get Klay going. Despite the mediocre efficiency, most of Thompson’s looks were good ones, and shots that you’re happy with him taking.

There was some progression on the defensive end, to be sure, though he’s still catching up there.

As he’ll be quick to point out, he needs time. It’s still extremely early in his recovery. He may not be the Klay that we were used to before the injury, but, if we’re being realistic, he’s further along the journey to get back there than anyone should have expected.

Grade: C

JaMychal Green

18 minutes, 9 points, 9 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 block, 1 turnover, 1 foul, 4-for-11 shooting, 0-for-2 threes, 1-for-1 free throws, 39.3% TS, -22

One thing I’m really, really looking forward to, is seeing how Green plays once Donte DiVincenzo and Andre Iguodala return from injury, and Dray and Klay have their minutes restrictions removed. I’ve said it a million times before, but he looks so good in good lineups, and so bad in bad ones.

His rebounding in this game was obscene (in a good way). He continues to be an absolute menace on the offensive glass.

Pretty rough in every other area of the game though.

Grade: C-

James Wiseman

9 minutes, 5 points, 1 block, 1 turnover, 3 fouls, 2-for-4 shooting, 1-for-2 free throws, 51.2% TS, -9

Wiseman played a season low in minutes and, based on the way he played, I’d expect that he’ll play a new season low in minutes when the Dubs visit the Orlando Magic on Thursday.

For the sake of Wiseman’s confidence, I hope he doesn’t search his name on Twitter, because the discourse on Warriors Twitter when he was in the game was hyper focused on him being unplayable. Despite only playing when Adebayo was on the bench, Wiseman got brutalized inside, and fouled once every three minutes.

He didn’t make a difference on offense, lacked aggression, and didn’t grab a single rebound.

Wiseman remains in the rotation while Jonathan Kuminga is, for now, out of it, but that is, unfortunately, the only positive you can take away from his performance on Tuesday.

Grade: D

Ty Jerome

13 minutes, 8 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 2 fouls, 2-for-4 shooting, 2-for-4 threes, 2-for-2 free throws, 82.0% TS, -8

I’m not entirely sure how to feel about Jerome’s performance. It’s hard to argue with those scoring numbers. On the other hand, he took a few heat checks and ... Ty Jerome should not be taking heat checks in the middle of close games.

Ultimately the shooting numbers worked out, but Jerome looked completely flummoxed by Miami’s zone defense. He got the best of it by making some deep threes, but that’s not exactly sustainable.

Grade: B

Jordan Poole

30 minutes, 9 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 5 turnovers, 2 fouls, 3-for-10 shooting, 1-for-7 threes, 2-for-4 free throws, 38.3% TS, -23

Poole pulled a reverse Wiggins, which is to say he followed up a divine Sunday performance by playing horribly in this one.

You can take my criticism of Jerome and quadruple it for Poole. He had no clue how to attack the Heat’s zone defense, and settled for not very good looks from distance. Unlike Jerome, he didn’t make them. The offense just didn’t work with Poole on the floor, as he didn’t make much of an effort to penetrate the defense.

He also turned the ball over five times, though it’s worth noting that three of those came on carrying violations that the league apparently decided to start enforcing on Tuesday. I give him a pass for that, but it was a really bad game for JP.

Grade: D-

Post-game bonus: Worst plus/minus on the team.

Moses Moody

15 minutes, 6 points, 2 assists, 1 steal, 2 turnovers, 2-for-5 shooting, 2-for-5 threes, 60.0% TS, -8

With every game, Moody looks more and more ready for legit NBA minutes than fellow youngsters Wiseman and Kuminga. Yet it’s also fair to start wondering if we’re ever going to see something special from last year’s lottery pick, or if he’ll always just be a solid-but-not-exciting three-and-D wing.

It’s way too early in his career to assume the latter, but it feels like I give him a “B” grade every time he takes the court ... because it feels like he never does anything very bad, but never does anything too great, either.

Grade: B

Tuesday’s DNPs: Patrick Baldwin Jr., Jonathan Kuminga, Ryan Rollins

Tuesday’s inactives: Donte DiVincenzo, Andre Iguodala, Anthony Lamb