SAN FRANCISCO — The Warriors’ first showing out of the All-Star break was nice, sure, but a 37-point win over woeful Portland still left Stephen Curry with questions.
Facing a true playoff contender Sunday night, a Warriors team that played without Klay Thompson (illness) showed why recent concerns shouldn’t have been put to rest so quickly.
The Warriors (43-18) led the Mavericks (36-25) for the first 44 minutes of regulation but let Dallas climb all the way back from a 21-point deficit and fell 107-101, their largest regular-season collapse in 14 seasons. The loss also marked the second time in three games the Warriors have allowed a double-digit second-half lead to completely evaporate.
“We really felt like we had the game under control,” said Curry, who scored 27 points on 25 shots to lead the Warriors in defeat. “We played great defense for 36 minutes and gave ourselves a huge lead, great momentum. … Obviously that’s two home games in a row where it’s been a rough fourth quarter for us, so we’ve got to figure out a way to maintain our energy even if shots aren’t falling.”
Sunday provided fans with shades of the team’s last home game — a loss in which the Warriors led until the final 13 seconds — as Golden State allowed Dallas to chip away at a 19-point fourth quarter advantage and never recovered, the largest lead lost in the fourth quarter in the NBA this season.
“I thought we kind of lost our spirit and our energy when they made that push,” head coach Steve Kerr said.
The Warriors went 5 for 21 from the floor in the final quarter and managed only one point for an eight-minute stretch (9:44-1:30) while allowing 26 during that span to Dallas.
“For whatever reason our energy switched when we missed a couple shots,” Curry said. “They come down and score, and we start to get deflated, for no reason, really, because we still had a sizable lead.”
This is what Curry was talking about when he said, “We’ll see” when asked after the Portland game if the Warriors had solved all their problems. The Mavericks “require another level of focus and attention,” Curry said.
That was there for a half Sunday. But not a full game.
Against the Trail Blazers on Thursday, the Warriors took an early lead and only kept building on it. In the two games sandwiching that effort, two playoff hopefuls have now shown the Warriors why they can’t take their foot off the gas.
“I think it’s actually good to go through it,” Kerr said. “This is what it feels like in the playoffs.”
The Warriors took their largest lead Sunday when Curry hit from 25 feet, one of his only three 3-pointers in a team-leading 27-point effort, putting them ahead 73-52 just under four minutes into the second half.
By the four-minute mark of the fourth quarter, the Mavericks had erased it entirely. Dorian Finney-Smith connected on a 3-pointer to give Dallas a 95-94 edge, from which the Warriors never recovered.
For two and a half quarters, it looked as though the Warriors were well on their way to a second straight win.
With Gary Payton II in the starting lineup in place of the injured Draymond Green for the third straight game, the Warriors’ defense came out firing on all cylinders. Payton and Kevon Looney disrupted the Mavericks’ first two possessions with steals, the first of 15 Golden State takeaways. Four players — Looney (3), Payton (2), Curry (2) and Andrew Wiggins (2) — came away with more than one.
They also only gave the ball away 10 times, continuing an encouraging trend that started before the All-Star break. One thing that was going right even as Golden State dropped four of five games was ball security. After Sunday, the Warriors have gone eight straight games without turning the ball over more than 15 times, averaging 11.5 per game over that span.
However, the Warriors got too little from anyone not named Curry.
Wiggins kept missing free throws. He clanked three of his five attempts Sunday and carries a 41.2% success rate at the line for the month of February.
Jordan Poole played so poorly that Kerr turned to end-of-the-rotation player Damion Lee down the stretch over the third-year guard. He took seven shots and missed them all, and the second unit for which he is the primary playmaker continued to struggle in that department.
No player on the Warriors’ bench recorded a positive plus-minus while losing the battle of bench minutes almost singlehandedly to Spencer Dinwiddie, who the Mavericks added when they offloaded Kristaps Porzingis at the trade deadline and on Sunday tore up the Warriors’ defense for an efficient 24 points on 10-of-14 shooting.
Dinwiddie led a Dallas effort that produced only the sixth game all season that an opponent shot 50% or better from the field against Golden State, which could not stop Luka Doncic from long range. He connected on 9 of 11 3-pointers to lead all scorers with 34.
Rookies switch roles
Only three Warriors recorded positive plus-minus ratings, despite leading for nine-tenths of the game.
There was Looney (+15) and Payton (+9). The third? Moses Moody, who Kerr inserted into the lineup for the fifth time this season in Thompson’s place. He only scored two baskets, but Golden State outscored Dallas by 14 with him on the floor.
Moody was active early, diving to the floor for a loose ball and knocking down an early 3-pointer, and then settled into the background of the game. His 26 minutes amounted to eight more than his rookie counterpart, a change of pace after a string of impressive performances by Jonathan Kuminga.
On Sunday, Kuminga’s streak of nine straight games scoring in double figures came to an end. If a rookie’s season is marked by highs and lows, then Sunday can be considered a low coming on the heels of a series of highs.
Kuminga quickly picked up three fouls and spent most of the first half on the bench. In limited time on the court, he committed four turnovers — no other Warrior had more than one — and missed a couple dunks.
“I thought JK, he’s had so much momentum and he’s brought such good energy to games, I thought he let the slow start affect him,” Kerr said. “He picked up some early fouls, he took a couple quick shots right when he got out there and let that affect his defense. … He’s got to go through this.”
The Warriors entire bench left them wanting: no reserve finished with a positive plus-minus, and none was worse than Kuminga’s -14.
