Warriors’ Andre Iguodala a key cog in team’s success
Despite all the talk about the Warriors’ deciding it was time to clean up their turnover problem, they followed 44 gaffes during a two-game span by coughing up three more in the first 4½ minutes Wednesday.
After missing three of the previous four games, Iguodala deemed his left hamstring healthy enough to take the floor.
The Warriors committed only nine turnovers in the next 32:53.
“We’re so different when we have Andre,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said.
If you don’t watch the game, if you just look at the box score, you just say, ‘Ho hum.’
In the four games he has missed (he rested Jan. 30 at Philadelphia), the Warriors have been outscored by an average of 1 point per game.
“Andre is a smart player,” Warriors reserve big man Marreese Speights said.
Iguodala’s impact on defense is well established — he is a two-time All-Defensive Team selection.
[...] his offensive production sometimes gets overlooked, because the man who averaged double-digit points for eight straight seasons has attempted only 7.3, 6.4 and 5.8 shots per game in his three seasons with the Warriors.
With Iguodala, the Warriors shoot 49.1 percent from the floor and 41.9 percent from three-point range.
The dropoff in assist-to-turnover ratio from 1.93-to-1 to 1.55-to-1 might not appear like much, but the number with Iguodala would rank No. 1 in the league, and the number without him plummets to 14th.
Defensively, he can guard so many positions, and he’s always in the passing lanes — disrupting everything.
The Warriors lost 137-105 to Portland on Feb. 19, their largest margin of defeat since a 39-point loss to Denver on April 9, 2012.
Portland point guard Damian Lillard, who went to Oakland High, scored 51 points in the victory over his hometown team — tying franchise records for points in a half (32, second) and three-pointers (9-for-12).
Friday’s game includes four of the league’s top nine players in terms of three-point field goals made: the Warriors’ Stephen Curry (304) and Klay Thompson (196), and the Blazers’ Lillard (182) and C.J. McCollum (154).