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OAKLAND – The night began with the Warriors determined they would sharpen their championship habits. The night ended with the Warriors showing some cracks in that championship armor.
The Warriors lost to the Phoenix Suns, 115-111, on Sunday at Oracle Arena, snapping an 18-game winning streak against the Western Conference’s worst team and snapping a two-day pledge that they would finally take the regular season seriously.
Kevin Durant, who had 25 points on 9-of-17 shooting, left midway through the fourth quarter after suffering a right ankle contusion. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson shot a combined 16-of-42 from the field. DeMarcus Cousins (13 points) declined to speak to reporters for the second consecutive game, while Draymond Green also skipped post-game interviews. A video then surfaced that appeared to show Warriors coach Steve Kerr expressing in vulgar terms that he has grown tired of Green. And the normally low-key Thompson questioned why the 19,596 fans at Oracle Arena did not cheer louder.
The music makes it. pic.twitter.com/OHnqSbefI8
— Dieter Kurtenbach (@dkurtenbach) March 11, 2019
“I know it’s not the playoffs. But it is our last go around at Oracle,” Thompson said. “Stand up or something when we make a play. We need that energy, especially this time of year. It’s hard to conjure up energy every single night because you’re looking forward to the playoffs in that run. So we expect our fans to kind of bring that from the jump.”
Granted, the Warriors appear likely to dismiss all of these developments.
The Warriors (45-21) still hold a 1 ½ game over the Denver Nuggets (43-22) for the Western Conference’s best record. Though Durant left the game with 6:34 left after landing awkwardly on his right ankle, Kerr indicated that neither the Warriors’ training staff nor Durant considered the ailment to be serious. Kerr declined to speak to a handful of reporters after video surfaced that appeared to show him saying, “I’m so (bleeping) tired of Draymond,” though they have resolved numerous flareups in the past four years. No one on the Warriors expect Thompson (28 points on 10-of-22 shooting) and Curry (18 points on 6-of-20 shooting) to miss shots collectively again.
But then again, there might be ramifications.
A few losses here or there, and the Warriors could easily drop in the Western Conference standings. Who knows if Durant’s injury worsens overnight. Perhaps Cousins and Green remain upset enough that they skip out on future media sessions. After the video captured his frustration with Green went viral, Kerr sought out Green in the locker room only to be told he had left the arena. After emerging out of the coach’s office for more than an hour following his press conference, Kerr was in no mood to speak to reporters asking for comment. Will Green have the same reaction when Kerr addresses the incident to him?
Who knows. The Warriors have always kept things interesting and unpredictable. As for their on-court play, the Warriors have maintained a Jekyll-and-Hyde persona all season. One day, the Warriors are blending their five All-Stars together to beat the Western Conference’s second best team by double-digit margins. Another day, the Warriors are allowing the Western Conference’s worst team to overcome a 16-point deficit and prevail in crunch time.
“It’s not like we walk off the court and say ‘Oh well next game.’ But we understand what it takes to win a championship,” said Curry, mindful the Warriors have won three of them in the past four year. “When we get to the playoffs, that’s what we live for. But right now, this uncomfortable feeling should be good for us. We have to figure out a way to get out of it.”
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Steph and Klay both struggled to make shots
The Warriors seemingly solved that problem to open the game.
Instead of resting any players against a lottery bound team, Kerr had everyone available. The Warriors held a 29-16 first-quarter lead. Then, Thompson finished with 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting. He also threw down a reverse dunk that prompted plenty of reactions. The crowd went wild. The Warriors’ bench jumped out of their seat. So did Warriors majority owner Joe Lacob, who high-fived Thompson nearly his courtside seat. Before that exchange, Thompson raised his hands to the roof.
It seemed like the beginning of an easy night against a Suns team that had played in Portland on Saturday night, arrived in San Francisco early Sunday morning and then lost an hour because of Daylights Savings Time.
“Barely legal by NBA standards even to have a back-to-back like that,” Kerr said. “But they came in and kicked our butt.”
They sure did. The Warriors quickly experienced what Thompson considered “probably our worst loss of the season.”
After the Warriors held a 29-16 first-quarter lead, though, the Suns trailed only 57-56 at halftime. Instead of making their customary third-quarter run, the Warriors held only a 80-79 lead. The biggest reason?
Kerr conceded he will continuously evaluate bench rotations to open the second and fourth quarters. But it also did not help that Curry and Thompson could not make shots. Thompson had 28 points while going 10-of-22 from the field and 4-of-15 from 3. Curry added 18 points on only a 6-of-20 clip and going 4-of-15 from deep.
In the third quarter, Curry went 3-of-8 from the field and 1-of-6 from deep. During that same stretch, Thompson missed all five of his 3-point attempts. It appeared the Suns would steal this game after holding a 109-98 lead with 3:19 remaining.
“Karma. When you don’t deserve to win in terms of execution and energy and connection, the ball doesn’t go in,” Kerr said. “I like that about basketball. You tend to earn things. Earn points, earn rebounds, earn a win. We didn’t earn a win. That’s the bottom line.”
But then the Warriors went on a 13-6 run to close out the game. Thompson stole the ball from Suns guard Devin Booker and drew a foul with 1:04 left. Thompson made both foul shots to trim the lead to 111-108. The Warriors grabbed the rebound on the next possession, but Curry missed a 28-foot 3 that could have tied the game with 23.7 seconds left.
“One game you miss shots,” Curry said. “We took ones we thought we could make. If they go down, this could totally be a different conversation. So I don’t overreact to that. Just one of those nights.”
If only that happened once to Curry.
Through 12 games in January, Curry made only 42.4 percent of his shots overall and 37.8 percent of his shots from 3. Through 11 games in February in the first quarter, Curry has shot 33.9 percent from the field and 26.5 percent from deep. And against the Suns? Curry went scoreless and missed all four of his shots, including three of them from deep.
As for Thompson, he appears well removed from his two prolonged shooting slumps from earlier this season. Through 11 games in January, Thompson averaged 23.6 points while shooting 51 percent from the field and 46.7 percent from 3. Despite missing the previous two games with a sore right knee, Thompson had 39 points against Denver on Friday while shooting 13-of-22 overall and 9-of-11 from deep.
“We’ll keep shooting. Make sure we keep taking good shots and get your legs under you,” Thompson said. “We’ve been through this many times before and we can’t just lose confidence, either. You’ve seen us get hotter than anyone in the league. So as cliché as it sounds, it only takes one time to see that ball go through the hoop.”
What’s with the Warriors’ inconsistency?
And it might only take one win for the Warriors to feel like themselves again. That will have to take place, though, against tougher opponents in a week-long, four-day trip in Houston (Wednesday), Oklahoma City (Saturday), San Antonio (March 18) and Minnesota (March 19).
Perhaps the Warriors feel more compelled to compete harder in those games. Then, again the Warriors thought the same thing before suffering a 33-point loss last week against Boston. They then offered plenty of self critiques in a film session before correcting almost everything in Friday’s 17-point win over Denver. The issues reemerged again against Phoenix.
Kerr declined to share what his message entailed this time. But he said sarcastically, “I’m going to just show them the tape and say, ‘Don’t play like this.’
“I guess we got to look back in the mirror again and take another look,” Kerr said. I always expect our team to play well. We laid an egg.”
All of which revealed the Warriors offering a sullen locker room. But Curry broke the tension by stressing that “last year was way worse than this.” Then, the Warriors lost 10 of their last 17 regular-season games amid overlapping injuries to Curry, Thompson, Durant and Green. Therefore, the Warriors conceded the No. 1 seed to Houston about two weeks before the season ended. This season, the Warriors have a fully healthy roster albeit with a laundry list of items to correct pertaining to their energy, focus, defense and chemistry.
“We’ve talked about the things we need to get better going into the playoffs, but just haven’t done it,” Curry said. “It’s an uncomfortable feeling, which I think we like right now. It’s not all just coasting. We’re getting challenged. We’re getting teams’ best shots. Our weaknesses are pretty glaring defensively and how we start games. We can talk about it and understand what we need to do to get better.”
And once the Warriors get better, perhaps they will have the crowd reception they want at Oracle Arena. First, a long trip awaits
“It’s like us, though. You can’t bring it every night,” Thompson said of Warriors fans. “But it helps when it doesn’t matter if you’re playing the Suns or the Bucks, whoever it is. We need energy from them because we feed off of that.”
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