Warriors vs Suns Prediction, Picks Today: Wednesday, Nov. 22

Here's everything you need to know about Warriors vs Suns on Wednesday, Nov. 22 — our expert prediction and betting picks for today.

Golden State just snapped a six-game losing streak on Monday with a win over the Rockets. Their struggles have been well-documented, as they have begun the year 7-8 and rank 17^th in net-rating (+0.4).

I think the panic about the Warrior dynasty being over is a little bit over-blown as they have actually played the No. 1 hardest schedule of opponents according to dunksandthrees.com. When adjusting for schedule strength, they rank a much more respectable ninth in net-rating (+2.8).

Breaking down their schedule, we see that they’ve played 10 of their 15 games against teams inside the top-12 in adjusted net-rating and seven of their 15 against teams in the top-6 according to dunksandthrees.com. The four games they played against “weaker” competition were against the Rockets and the Kings, two teams that have proven they aren’t pushovers in the slightest.

We are certainly overreacting to the Warriors' early season struggles, but there is reason to doubt that this team is a title contender. Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson look completely lost through the first 15 games and no longer seem to be capable of providing consistent secondary scoring punch behind Steph Curry. Wiggins is shooting 25% from three and ranks in the seventh percentile of effective field goal percentage (45.6%) to start the year. Klay’s effective field goal of 50% ranks him in the 24^th percentile of all wings, and he is shooting just 34% from 3. Neither guy has looked impactful on defense to begin the year, either.

Outside of Steph and Looney, the only bright lights for this team have been Gary Payton II and rookie Brandin Podziemski. Draymond has been impactful when he has been on the court, but he has let his ego take him off the floor when the team needs him most by earning himself a 5-game suspension via chokehold to Rudy Gobert most recently. The Warriors are not finished, but it is clear they need to make some changes if they want to compete for a title this season and that will likely come in some form of Kuminga, Wiggins, or Klay being moved for a better secondary scorer before the deadline.

Focusing on this matchup, we saw these teams debut against each other to open the season, with the Suns earning a four-point win in that one. Both teams shot awfully in that game as the Warriors had a 41% EFG% (first percentile) and the Suns had 50.5% EFG% (26^th percentile).

This should be a fairly similar matchup, as Draymond Green and Bradley Beal were both out for the opener and will remain out here. I expect offensive efficiency to increase here as the Suns have leaned into their “all-offense” lineup more as of late, as they’ve been allocating the majority of their minutes to Durant, Booker, Allen, Gordon, and Nurkic, with guys like Josh Okogie seeing less minutes lately.

With Josh Okogie off the floor and Devin Booker on, the Suns have an insane 135.0 offensive rating, and that particular lineup mentioned above has an offensive rating of 139.0 across 123 possessions according to cleaningtheglass.com. These guys are lighting people up, and that should continue here with Draymond out of the lineup for the Warriors.

The Warriors have also leaned into their offense a bit more as of late as guys like Dario Saric, Chris Paul, and Brandin Podziemski have played more minutes since Draymond’s suspension. Saric offers no rim protection or defensive rebounding but does offer spacing and Chris Paul and Podziemski are not going to be able to defend at the point of attack.

I am leaning toward this over given who I expect to see on the floor for both teams tonight.

The Suns offense has been wildly efficient whenever Devin Booker has been in the lineup and I think that this Sun defense is potentially very bad. They rank 19^th in defensive rating but have played the single easiest schedule of opposing offenses thus far. We’ve seen them struggle to defend bad teams like the Spurs, Jazz, and Trail Blazers, and I expect Steph Curry and the Warriors to explode here.

This lines up perfectly for a Warriors outburst, as the Warriors rank 13^th in offensive rating despite playing the single toughest schedule of opposing defenses this year. I think this Warrior offense exploits this Suns defense, so I’ll take the over here.

Pick: Over 231