The Golden State Warriors are placing considerable emphasis on improving their transition defense during training camp after struggling in that area throughout last season.
Wednesday’s second practice at BYU-Hawaii featured another controlled 5-on-5 session, although the overall workload was slightly lighter than the opening day.
Head coach Steve Kerr acknowledged that Golden State must address its defensive shortcomings, particularly when opponents push the ball following changes of possession.
“We were a very poor transition team last year,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “One of our main focal points at camp is to try to clean up our transition, be more efficient. Gave away too many points last year, and we’re working hard on that.”
The Warriors surrendered 24.7 transition points per game last season, ranking eighth-worst in the NBA.
Veteran coach Frank Vogel, who recently joined Golden State to oversee its defense, has already introduced several adjustments to the team’s practice routine.
Vogel brings 21 years of NBA coaching experience, including 12 seasons as a head coach and nine as an assistant. He previously directed the Dallas Mavericks’ defense following a one-year tenure as head coach of the Phoenix Suns.
Kerr revealed that Golden State has been studying footage from Dallas’ previous training camp to incorporate some of Vogel’s defensive concepts.
“We’re using some of his transition defensive drills, some of his rebounding drills,” Kerr said. “We’ve been watching tape of Dallas’ training camp from last year. The drill work that Frank did with them, and Frank said, ‘No more Dallas tape after the game.’ Those guys don’t like watching another team, so now we have enough tape for ourselves to watch our own camp tape.
“But Frank’s awesome. He’s a great, great coach, and he’s doing a really good job getting these guys organized, giving them kind of the expectations for how we’re going to defend, our terminology – I’m very confident.”
