Player grades: Warriors vs. Kings

Assessing every player’s performance from the team’s 118-94 loss to Sacramento.

The Golden State Warriors lost to the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night. More specifically, the Warriors got annihilated. Their season came to an abrupt halt, with all the goodwill they’d built up over a brilliant final stretch of the season swiftly washed away.

It was ugly. It was frustrating. It was painful. And it left a taste in everyone’s mouth that is going to be heavy on the team’s mind as they look towards the offseason.

I hate grading the final game of the year, so I’m going to try and make this quick and to the point. As always, grades are based on my expectations for each player, with a “B” grade representing the average performance for that player.

Note: True-shooting percentage (TS) is a scoring-efficiency metric that accounts for threes and free throws. League-average TS this year was 58.0%.

Draymond Green

35 minutes, 12 points, 3 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, 3 turnovers, 3 fouls, 4-for-8 shooting, 2-for-4 threes, 2-for-2 free throws, 67.6% TS, -22

Green had some of the biggest highlights in this game thanks to his at-times phenomenal defense on Domantas Sabonis. It felt like he stripped Sabonis at least five times on what should have been easy buckets.

Dray kept his composure in terms of not getting into it with players or refs. But at times he lost his veteran composure, and made the type of mistakes you would expect an inexperienced team like the Kings to make.

Grade: B-
Post-game bonus: Led the team in assists.

Trayce Jackson-Davis

11 minutes, 2 points, 1 rebound, 1 turnover, 1 foul, 1-for-1 shooting, 100.0% TS, -10

Steve Kerr opted to start TJD, which was an odd choice since Kerr wanted Green defending Sabonis, leaving Jackson-Davis to spend a lot of time defending Harrison Barnes. Then again, if Kerr had removed TJD from the starting lineup after he’d been fitting in so well there, that would have been an odd choice.

Either way, he looked in over his head in this came.

Grade: C

Andrew Wiggins

25 minutes, 12 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, 3 turnovers, 4-for-11 shooting, 1-for-4 threes, 3-for-5 free throws, 45.5% TS, -25

Wiggins had been so much better lately, but this game was a reversion back to the things that made this a season he’ll want to forget. The offense was inefficient, the rebounding was lackadaisical, and the perimeter defense wasn’t at all reminiscent of what earned him an All-Star nod two years ago.

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

Steph Curry

36 minutes, 22 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, 6 turnovers, 8-for-16 shooting, 3-for-7 threes, 3-for-3 free throws, 63.5% TS, -21

As was the case for so much of this year, I have no idea how to grade Curry. He was an absolute turnover machine, and at times had some bad shots, but that doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The Warriors had essentially no offensive life outside of Curry, and he was forced to try and do everything — which led to some not-so-good things.

That’s not to fully absolve him. He looked at the end of a draining season in this one, with some bad defensive possessions, some poor decisions, and a few times just plum getting pick-pocketed at mid-court.

Grade: C+
Post-game bonus: Led the team in points.

Klay Thompson

32 minutes, 0 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 turnover, 2 fouls, 0-for-10 shooting, 0-for-6 threes, 0.0% TS, -12

There’s no way to sugarcoat this one. After really turning his season around in the second half, this was probably the worst game in Klay’s career. It was only the fifth time in his career he’d failed to make a shot. His previous highs were 11 minutes and two shot attempts without a bucket.

The hardest part of this season, for me, was watching so much of the fanbase turn on Klay. Hopefully you, gentle reader, are not one of those people.

I fully agree with Kerr here:

There’s no way to sugarcoat this game. All I’ll say is I hope very badly that this isn’t the last we see of Klay in a Warriors jersey.

Grade: F

Jonathan Kuminga

28 minutes, 16 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, 3 fouls, 6-for-15 shooting, 0-for-2 threes, 4-for-6 free throws, 45.4% TS, -22

Kuminga had a poor shooting line, but that’s largely because, as the game got out of hand, he tried to drag the team back into it. It almost worked in the second quarter, but not so much in the second half.

He didn’t start in this game, though he replaced TJD in the starting lineup to begin the second half. I hope it’s the last time Kuminga isn’t in the starting lineup for many years.

Grade: B-

Usman Garuba

2 minutes, 0 points, 1 rebound, 0-for-1 shooting, 0.0% TS, +2

And thus concludes Garuba’s very short stint on the full roster.

Grade: Incomplete

Kevon Looney

9 minutes, 2 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 4 fouls, 1-for-2 shooting, 50.0% TS, +1

Had the Warriors offense not been so bad, Looney and his solid defense might have stayed in the game more. Then again, the fouls would have made that hard.

Grade: C+

Gui Santos

2 minutes, 0 points, 1 rebound, +2

Looking forward to seeing Santos next year.

Grade: Incomplete

Chris Paul

18 minutes, 3 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists, 1 turnover, 2 fouls, 1-for-3 shooting, 1-for-2 threes, 50.0% TS, -15

In what was probably his final game as a Warrior, CP3 was, unfortunately, mostly a non-factor. Depending on your point of view, that CP3, Klay, and Wiggins were non-factors in this game is either a sign that it simply wasn’t the Warriors year and things didn’t go right; or a sign that they were doomed from the onset.

Grade: D

Moses Moody

15 minutes, 16 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 foul, 5-for-8 shooting, 2-for-4 threes, 4-for-5 free throws, 78.4% TS, +3

No other Warriors can claim to be what Moody was on Tuesday night: really good.

Grade: A+
Post-game bonus: Best plus/minus on the team.

Lester Quiñones

2 minutes, 4 points, 1 rebound, 1-for-2 shooting, 0-for-1 threes, 2-for-2 free throws, 69.4% TS, +2

Don’t be surprised if Q gets a bunch of CP3’s minutes next year.

Grade: Incomplete

Brandin Podziemski

23 minutes, 5 points, 8 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 turnover, 1 foul, 2-for-3 shooting, 1-for-2 threes, 83.3% TS, -3

It shouldn’t be surprising after the bravado with which Podz played this year, but he was absolutely not afraid of the moment. He at times looked more prepared for the moment than the Warriors championship veterans.

Setup for a monster sophomore campaign.

Grade: A-
Post-game bonus: Led the team in rebounds.

Tuesday’s DNP-CDs: Dario Šarić

Tuesday’s inactives: Gary Payton II