What We Learned When JK, Buddy Warriors to Preseason Win vs. Kings originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SACRAMENTO – The last time the Warriors stepped foot on the Golden 1 Center court, their season came to an embarrassing end with a blowout loss to the Sacramento Kings in the NBA Play-In tournament six months ago.

There will be no revenge in the preseason, but there were plenty of reasons for the Warriors to be happy with their 122-112 victory over the Kings.

Buddy Hield, originally drafted No. 6 overall by the Kings in 2016, scored 22 points in the game. He was a plus-13 in 19 minutes, making eight of his nine shot attempts and going 6-for-7 from three.

Up and down the roster, the Warriors lit it up from long range and also took care of the ball. The Warriors made 21 more threes than the Kings. They also had 34 assists on 44 shots made, turning the ball over just 13 times.

King’s star offseason addition, DeMar DeRozan, scored 15 points in 15 minutes and made all six of his shots in his debut with his new team.

Here are three insights from the Warriors who improved to 2-0 in the preseason.

New starting five

Steve Kerr has said that this training camp and preseason is all about finding the right combinations to determine who is the best fit. The first group he went to Hawaii with on Saturday was Steph Curry, De’Anthony Melton, Jonathan Kuminga, Draymond Green and Trayce Jackson-Davis. In the second preseason game, Kerr opted to swap Brandin Podziemski for Melton and Kevon Looney replaced Jackson-Davis at center.

The starting five did not play together once last season.

When Kerr first went to his bench four days ago, the Warriors were trailing 17-12. The new starting five trailed 16-13 before Kerr made his first trade Wednesday night, sending Jackson-Davis to Looney. Curry tied the game seconds later with a 3-pointer.

Looney started the game with a mid-range jump shot and made only one more shot the rest of the game. Green scored ten points in just over sixteen minutes to go with five assists, two rebounds and two turnovers. Kuminga struggled with early foul trouble but showed off his improved jump shot with 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting, including 4-of-7 from beyond the arc. Podziemski dished out eight assists, also scored eight points, grabbed four rebounds and two steals.

Apart from the first five minutes and 45 seconds of the first quarter, the starting line-up did not share the podium again for the entire match.

Steph Show gets in the pocket

Even at 36 years old and entering his 16th season, Curry might still get first-game jitters. Or maybe he just had a bad day in Honolulu when the all-time great shooter went 2 of 8 from the field and missed all four of his three-point attempts to open the preseason. Back in Northern California, Curry found his opportunity and gave traveling Golden State fans plenty to cheer about.

Curry scored eight points in the first quarter and made all three of his shots, including two three-pointers.

In the second quarter, Curry scored five more points, giving him 13 points for the night. Curry went 2 of 4 in the quarter and made one of his three attempts from behind the three-point line. In just under 16 minutes, Curry looked much more like himself than he did a few days earlier.

However, his minus-7 plus/minus was the lowest among the Warriors’ starting lineup. For the second straight game, he and Green did not play in the second half.

3-point parade

The Warriors rained down 48 3-pointers in their first preseason game while scoring just 11 points. And Lindy Waters III had five of those.

During Kerr’s pregame media availability, I asked the Warriors coach about that high number of threes, and here’s what he had to say: “I don’t necessarily have a number in mind. I want to take a lot of them, and I want them to be good shots we have to be better in transition we should make more threes in transition than we have the last few years our points per possession in transition has been 26th two years in a row, 27th in the competition.

“Part of that is turnover, part of it is that we as a coaching staff have to do a better job with our spacing. And in the half court, we’d much rather have a three than a mid-range shot. I also like good mid-distance shots. We’re trying to find the balance.”

Letting it fly was an emphasis from Kerr on his Warriors, and they did it again in Sacramento. This time with much more success.

By halftime, they had already taken 27 threes and made 15. Along with Curry’s three three-pointers, Hield made all four of his attempts. Melton made three in the first half, and Green and Kuminga also made a pair each.

They ended up hitting 52 three-point attempts, making 28, which was good for a 53.8 percent clip. A total of ten Warriors hit a three, and eight of those players made more than one.

Their 28 three-pointers would have been a franchise record if this had been a regular season game.

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