The Golden State Warriors have won eight of their last nine games, but turnovers have been in an issue in several of those contests. Kevin Durant thinks he knows one way the Warriors can cut back on giving the ball to the other team.
Pass less.
After Golden State turned the ball over a whopping 20 times in a 121-11 win over the Toronto Raptors Wednesday night, Durant weighed in on the turnover problem.
Kevin Durant on the Warriors turnover issues: "Just overpassing to be honest. I was the worst." pic.twitter.com/8ZLXvVaMOW
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) December 29, 2016
“I think we were just over-passing, to be honest,” Durant said. “I was the worst. I just threw the ball away. I had a wide open three, just dropping the ball. I think this is stuff we can control. It’s not like they were getting to us and turning us over. We were just doing a lot of over-passing and getting to the lane and trying to make a second or third when we had a layup.”
Durant is right that he was the worst, as he committed a game-high six turnovers. However, he did say that sharing the ball too much is a good problem for a team to have.
“It’s a good problem to have. It shows a lot of unselfishness from us,” Durant said. “But 20 turnovers, that’s the third game in a row we had 15-plus turnovers. We gotta control that.”
The Warriors can get away with turning the ball over 20 times and still winning a regular season game, but that could come back to bite them in a playoff series. Ironically, the unselfish style of basketball Golden State plays is one of the main reasons Durant chose to sign with the Warriors. Based on some of the reports we heard about teams hoping to poach Durant, it sounds like some executives around the league expected the new-look Dubs to have the opposite problem.
