Warriors: Why hot-handed Moody was pulled for Wiggins in loss to Kings

Steve Kerr has to juggle hot hands and cold streaks

Moses Moody couldn’t recall the last time he missed a shot in Sacramento. It was because it had been a long time.

Last week, he missed a 3-point attempt against the Phoenix Suns 10 minutes into the third quarter. Moody has gone 8-for-8 from the field and 4-for-4 from three in two games since then.

On Tuesday night, with the Sacramento Kings closing in on the Warriors’ 24-point lead in the fourth quarter, Moody made the Kings’ defense pay for throttling Steph Curry and Klay Thompson from beyond the arc, sinking four open shots in seven minutes to create some separation.

Then Andrew Wiggins trotted over to the scorers’ table, and Moody was back on the bench in a flash to put his hot hand on ice. The team’s traditional starting five lost the game, 124-123, due to a pair of turnovers by Curry and Draymond Green.

“We needed to get Wiggs on the floor for defense against (De’Aaron) Fox,” said coach Steve Kerr. “We went with Klay (Thompson) and our vets.” We considered keeping him there, but we made the decision we did.”

Moody wasn’t supposed to play at first. Before the game, Kerr informed Moody that he would be pushed out of the rotation due to Green’s return from a five-game suspension. However, injuries to Chris Paul and Gary Payton II opened the door, and Kerr lauded Moody for accepting his benching and remaining prepared for the moment.

It was also no surprise that Kerr drew him. He has stated that he will practice patience with the starting lineup by allowing them to play through wrinkles rather than playing the hot hand elsewhere on the bench. Despite the loss on Tuesday, his confidence in the starters appeared to have paid off.

Wiggins and Thompson, who have turned the starting lineup into a disarray so far, had one of their best games of the season. Wiggins finished 11-for-18 with 29 points and 10 rebounds, exactly the kind of stat line the Warriors are hoping he can produce on a consistent basis.

Thompson finished with 20 points, 17 in the first half, on 6-of-14 shooting and nine rebounds. He has a lot of bad to atone for: When Thompson is on the court, the team is minus-31, but it is plus-33 when he is not. It’s even worse for Wiggins, who was plus-89 when he wasn’t on the court and minus-87 when he was.

If the coaches keep Moody in the lineup against the Kings, it may necessitate a smaller lineup without Kevon Looney. When Looney and Green are on the floor, opposing defenses only have to focus on three potential scorers on the floor: Curry, Thompson, and Wiggins. That clogged spacing forced the Warriors to start Green off the bench in the playoffs last year, and they were successful.

Or Moody would have played over Thompson, who demonstrated to the world that he would not take kindly to a late-game benching when a reporter suggested that coaches are giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“Do you want me to bench me?” Thompson responded on Monday. “Would you like to bench (Andrew Wiggins)?” You want to put us on the bench? OK. It’s fine if you suggest it. ‘Thanks, Steve,’ I suppose. Like, I’m not sure. Patience and time to find yourself are sometimes earned. When it comes to that, I believe history is on our side.”

If anything, it’s a glimpse into Kerr’s predicament. Bench Thompson, and the team’s list of worries grows to include a shattered ego. To be fair, it was Curry and Green who made the most costly mistakes in Tuesday’s game, not Wiggins or Thompson.

Golden State is 8-10, losing winnable games by outplaying themselves. They are succumbing to chaos rather than creating the organized chaos that fueled them previously. On Tuesday, the Warriors’ alleged mental advantage over every other team appeared to crumble when Green was called for a technical foul and an eight-point lead crumbled.

All of the ways the Warriors have lost call the core’s viability into question, especially if they’re on the floor together. That isn’t to say Curry, Thompson, Green, Wiggins, and Looney aren’t among the most feared NBA players individually, but this combination, which rose to become one of the best five-man groups two years ago, has looked stale recently.

Nonetheless, there is hope that they are better than their record suggests.

“The blueprint is there,” said Kerr. “I’m very excited about this group. It’s a heartbreaking defeat. Fans will be disappointed, and we will be disappointed. But we’ll have a good team, and we’ll have a good season.”