After finishing 20 games under .500 last season, the revitalized Golden State Warriors currently find themselves on the other, less-familiar end of the Western Conference standings. How did the Dubs turn things around? Here are 10 facts (and sorta-facts) about the new-and-improved Warriors.
1. They play defense. Seriously.
Don’t feel bad if you haven’t noticed. Some teams in the league haven't caught on, either.
“We still play teams, especially from the Eastern Conference, where they come in expecting like a 125-115 game,” David Lee said. “And when they’re sitting there with 43 points at half, I think they’ve started to realize [the difference].”
A 105-101 game is far more likely these days. After five straight seasons in the dregs of the defensive standings, the Warriors seem to have finally cut ties with the offensive-centric gonzo-ball of Don Nelson. The Warriors' defense is now ranked 10th in efficiency (100.8).
An influx of talent, as head coach Mark Jackson is quick to point out, surely helps: Because of injuries and “injuries,” Golden State started Chris Wright, Jeremy Tyler, Mickell Gladness, Charles Jenkins and Klay Thompson in last season’s finale. But a full summer and training camp under Jackson was just as important, especially given the rotten defensive reputations of most of the high-caliber players that replaced them. The Warriors’ coaching staff went far beyond “Hand down, man down” in preseason, revamping the team’s pick-and-roll coverage, as detailed earlier this season by Grantland’s Zach Lowe, and preaching defense as the new identity to a cast once synonymous with offense-first basketball.
“Festus [Ezeli] has done a great job for us, and so has [Andris] Biedrins, of protecting the paint from a big man’s point of view, which is something we haven’t had in a couple years,” said Andrew Bogut, the tea***one defensive stalwart who has missed the bulk of his time with the Warriors because of injury. “The guards are fighting much more over screens than they have the last couple years. As a whole, we’ve bought into team defense, and it’s pretty nice to see. We’ve got a lot of guys who were labeled quote-unquote bad defenders, but we’re actually defending at a very high rate.”
Said Jackson: “Any great team has an identity. And ours is on the defensive end.”
2. They can rebound, too.
Each time he takes the court, Lee sets his focus on two things: “Playing with energy and getting every rebound,” he said.
Healthy, confident and focused on the crafts that have buoyed his career since being selected with the last pick of the first round in 2005, Lee is having his best season on the glass since 2008-09, his second-to-last with the Knicks before being signed-and-traded out West. The better board work has been pivotal to his own success -- his other numbers have seen slight upticks (20.85 PER, 19.9 points per game, 15.6 assist ratio) -- and the team's. After finishing dead last in defensive and overall rebound rate last season, Golden State is now ranked second and tied for third, respectively. “Last year, teams would play volleyball with it at the front of the rim,” Lee said, but that’s far from the case this season.

The coaching staff has also put a sharp focus on rebounding, with missed box-outs being harped on the most in team film sessions. Personnel, again, also helps. Thompson and Harrison Barnes have good size and athleticism for their positions. Offseason import Carl Landry is rebounding better than he has since his rookie season, rookie Draymond Green has the fourth-best rebound rate among small forwards and the scrappy Jarrett Jack is solid for his size. And while Biedrins and Ezeli provide virtually no help on the offensive end -- the centers boast the two worst plus-minuses on the team -- they are assets in the two categories that have helped spark the team’s turnaround.
3. They don’t miss Monta Ellis.
Perhaps more than any other player, Ellis represents the past of Golden State basketball. The most high-profile of the two holdovers from the We Believe Warriors, Ellis hijacked the team’s identity with his gaudy numbers and flashy performances. But by trading their miniature moped enthusiast before last year’s trade deadline for Bogut, Golden State invested in a future that was un-Ellis-like in virtually every way. It was ball-dominant offense for ball-stopping defense.
“It gave us a different makeup,” Lee said.
Even with Bogut unavailable for the bulk of his time since, the addition by subtraction alone was bound to aid the defense, but the Warriors also haven’t missed Ellis much on the offensive end, either. While no one Warriors player has the same knack for getting to the rim off the bounce, Landry and Lee have provided ample at-the-rim opportunities. And though Thompson has misfired a bit more than expected, both he and Stephen Curry are firing up more from long range this season; Curry is again one of the top 3-point shooters in the league and has looked particularly lethal playing the 2 next to Jack. The ball movement has improved as well, according to Lee, and it also gives the team a more traditional 1-5 lineup, which has helped most when matching up at the defensive end.
While Lee and others remember Ellis fondly as a teammate, Golden State’s new flow extends beyond the court as well. The mood was always light in practice and in the locker room this weekend -- at shootaround at Staples Center on Saturday before their matchup with the Clippers, veterans giddily kicked basketballs into the stands and had rookies retrieve them, and Lee sunbathed shirtless as he waited for his teammates by the bus -- and Jackson has empowered talented assistants like Mike Malone to have a voice in the process and influence on the team, which has in turn presented a more cohesive unit to players.
“There’s great chemistry amongst our coaches, and that really matters because everybody’s preaching the same message,” Lee said. “When the captains of the team and the coaches of the team are preaching the same message, especially when we have so many young guys that play a role in our success, it’s good for them to hear the same message across the board.”
4. Curry is finally healthy.
Despite having to wade through 43 losses, including 11 over the final 12 games, Jackson’s first season as an NBA head coach proved a valuable learning experience.
“You need talent. And you need healthy talent,” Jackson said. “Two tremendous lessons.”
Curry would certainly agree.
For a year and a half, the health of his ankles consumed Curry’s thoughts. Even when he was on the court, he had to account for it. “It was every day,” he said. “Hours of rehab and therapy, not knowing if it was good enough to suit u****ot, in and out of the lineup.”
But now he thinks only in Xs and Os when he’s playing, which he’s doing more often than he ever has. While his 2-point field goal percentage and PER have taken a slight dip as he adapts to handling the ball on the pick-and-roll a bit more often, extra playing time has led to career highs in points (20.1) and assists (6.5) per game and a career-low turnover percentage. His advanced numbers remain steady, too, underlining that what the 24-year-old needed most this season was simply court time. That and peace of mind.