Warriors snap losing streak, Eric Paschall as a playmaker and more thoughts from Saturday’s win over the Suns

The Golden State Warriors were down to just eight healthy players and were without their leading playmakers in Saturday's win over the Suns.

PHOENIX — Heading to the sideline after Warriors forward Eric Paschall powered his way to a two-handed dunk, guard Damion Lee pumped his fists and slapped his teammates’ hands as he yelled, “Let’s give them a game!”

The Warriors were on their way to erasing the Suns’ 18-point lead and a 115-99 win at Talking Stick Resort Arena on Saturday night. With only eight healthy players, a makeshift group without a true point guard managed to snap an eight-game losing streak.

Without Draymond Green (left knee soreness), Jordan Poole (right ankle) and Ky Bowman (right ankle) — and Steph Curry (left hand surgery) sidelined into next week — the Warriors entered Saturday’s game without their top facilitators.

This forced the Warriors to run their offense by committee, and resulted in good ball movement despite half of the team’s eight healthy players joining the Warriors this month.

Overall, the Warriors assisted on 30 of their 41 made shots and turned the ball over just 10 times — a vast improvement from their 27 turnovers Thursday against the Lakers. Meanwhile, an earnest defense held the Suns to 41% shooting and forced 20 turnovers.

“We did a great job sharing the ball and it gave us the freedom to just go out and play,” Paschall said.

Among the Warriors’ newcomers was guard Mychal Mulder, who signed to a 10-day contract this week and, in his second game with Golden State, scored 14 points, including a 3-pointer that helped the Warriors extend a game-swinging 31-16 run in the third quarter.

“I thought Mychal really spiked us,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “We had a really key stretch there in the mid-second quarter where we really got some momentum.”

In his most impressive game since joining the Warriors on a 10-day contract, center Dragan Bender finished with 13 points, nine rebounds and four assists. Forward Andrew Wiggins, acquired in a trade-deadline deal from Minnesota, had 17 points on 6-for-20 shooting, seven rebounds and five assists.

But it was Paschall — who finished with 25 points on 10-for-16 shooting, three rebounds and four assists in 32 minutes — who took on the most additional responsibility in generating offense.

Kerr routinely called plays for the rookie, asking him to use his strength to penetrate the Suns’ defense and create open shots for his teammates.

“All you really want to do against a defense is get someone to rotate, get the defense to have to react,” Kerr said. “Eric is good enough to do that.”

Paschall’s two-handed slam helped erase an 18-point lead the Suns established in the second quarter after outscoring the Warriors 41-28 in the opening period. It was at that point the Warriors’ mood changed from frustrated to enthusiastic. Kerr’s constant complaints to the officials were replaced by fist pumps and a smile.

After all, it was the first thing the Warriors have had to smile about since the Feb. 6 trade deadline, with Saturday’s win being their first since making a flurry of roster changes.

Kerr has said in recent days the team needed a win, remarking after Thursday’s 30-point loss to the Lakers that those in the locker room were growing increasingly frustrated with mounting losses.

This win won’t do anything to change the fate of this lottery-bound season, but it will also serve as more than a moral boost — it’s an important marker of growth during a season in which the Warriors are developing contributors for 2020-21.

Early in this season, Paschall, the No. 41 pick in June’s NBA Draft, established himself as part of the future. Several other Warriors are now getting a similar chance.

This injury-plagued season has been far from what the Warriors had planned, but perhaps the most impressive thing about this group has been their willingness to experiment, play hard and develop a new appreciation for winning.

“The joy in that locker room right now, the relief, everyone is smiling and happy and excited,” Kerr said. “Our team has played hard all year and they’ve competed and at times they’ve just been out-manned. So every win becomes sweeter.”

A few more thoughts…

1. Earlier in the season, Paschall had a tendency to stop the ball on offense and force his own shot. At first, that was fine. The Warriors were happy for anyone to be generating points.

But the point of this season is finding guys who can contribute in 2020-21, within an offense that includes Curry and Klay Thompson. Being an isolation scorer won’t work within that ecosystem.

Over the course of the season, Kerr and player development coach Theo Robertson have worked with Paschall to shed some of those ball-stopping tendencies, use his size and athleticism to bend defenses and better read the floor.

He is making improvements. Since the trade deadline, he has gone from averaging 3.5 potential assists (passes that lead to a shot attempt) per game to 4.6.

“What’s different now versus a few months ago is his willingness to get off the ball and kick it out to the perimeter and be more of a playmaker,” Kerr said. “That’s been a big part of his development. He was a big scorer in the first month of the season, but he was forcing a lot of the action. He’s become more of an efficient player and he’s seeing the guys who are open a lot better.”

“You kick the ball out, you’ve got the defense in rotation and now you’ve got everybody coming down hill and being able to attack and make plays. But you have to get that first rotation, and Eric is able to generate that.”

Paschall is far from a finished product as a playmaker — his assist-to-turnover ratio still ranks near the bottom of the league for someone with his usage rate — but this is the department the Warriors’ are monitoring over the final games of the season.

2. Sunday’s game against the Wizards will be the Warriors’ first back-to-back set in 62 days — the longest span between back-to-back sets in NBA history.

3. Every win brings questions about the Warriors’ lottery odds. Here are the updated standings at the bottom of the league:

30. Golden State (13-47)
29. Cleveland (17-43)
28. Minnesota (17-41)
27. New York (18-42)
26. Atlanta (19-43)

The Warriors are four wins behind the next-worst team in the league. They can afford to win a game every now and then.