One letdown loss on the road can be talked away as a fluke. Two of them in a row, and it starts to become a problem. The Golden State Warriors dropped their second game in a row against the previously winless Indiana Pacers in a narrow 114-109 loss on the road. It was a game in which the Dubs' lethargy and visible lack of focus allowed the Pacers to hang tight. Even when Golden State built a double-digit lead late in the fourth, turnovers and failure to execute allowed Indiana to steal one on the back end of a back-to-back.
The Pacers' Quenton Jackson barbecued the Warriors' defense for 25 points, 12 of which came in the fourth quarter. Throw in Aaron Nesmith's blistering 31 points and the ease with which Pascal Siakam collected 27 points, and the Warriors' apparent defense struggles become much more glaring. After the game, Dubs head coach Steve Kerr expressed his frustration with the way Golden State handled the short road trip.
“It feels like we just gave away two games,” Kerr said, via ESPN's Anthony Slater. “If we are locked-in, and focused, and playing the way we know we can play, we should have won them … We have to find a way to be sharper and to be better. There’s always tough nights during the season. This should not have been one of them. We had the day off yesterday, we didn’t shoot around today, we had plenty of rest.”
The Warriors have had a brutal schedule from a rest standpoint to open the season, with seven games in the last 12 days. But as Kerr said, that doesn't excuse the losses. 16 team turnovers aren't because of fatigue. Disconnected defensive rotations aren't because of fatigue. An inability to get up for a hungry Pacers team isn't because of fatigue.
Curry takes the blame for the fourth quarter
It didn't help that Stephen Curry, the engine of the Warriors, played a lackluster, low-energy game. The Dubs star racked up five turnovers and a -21 plus/minus on 4-of-16 from beyond the arc. After the game, Curry took the blame for Golden State's problems throughout the loss.
“This is one of those look in the mirror [type of games]. I made it too hard on all of us,” Curry said. “With not getting organized, bad possessions, a little lack of energy. And you give a team like that life … just one of those games you got to play better throughout the meat of the game, so that you give yourself that breathing room where a couple shots here and there don’t determine the outcome.”
But nights like these for Curry will come and go. The bigger issue is the Dubs' growing trend of not looking engaged in winnable road games. The blowout loss in Portland is explainable — a third game in four nights, early in the season. But the last two against a Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Milwaukee Bucks and an Indiana team on the back end of a back-to-back are confounding. For Jimmy Butler, who cited bad turnovers and over-fouling, emphasized getting back to playing how they are capable of playing.
“We'll be fine, everybody just got to be doing what they're supposed to be doing. We got to get back to playing our roles to a T,” Butler said. “Giving a damn whenever we turn it over. Giving a damn whenever our man scores. We guard as a team, we score as a team, everybody got to be on the same page. I think we’ve gotten away from that a little bit. It’s not a bad thing, not a bad thing, but we’ve got to get back to all five playing defense, all five playing offense.”
The Warriors' schedule only gets harder
Losses like these matter, even early in the season. Kerr talked about how playoff standings the past few seasons for the Dubs have been decided by one or two games. One or two games are the difference between the dreaded play-in tournament and a favorable playoff seed. With eight of their next 10 games on the road, it's not going to get any easier in this early stretch of the season. For Curry, the frustration stems from not being able to carry the momentum from an impressive 4-1 start.
“It's the frustration of not being able to capture that momentum we had, to sustain the start we had,” Curry said. “I know we can get it back, long way to go … Everyone's talked about how tough the schedule is and all this and that. But these are two games that we really should have [won] and wanted to have to show for our start. But hopefully it lights of fire under all of us to get back on the horse and figure out how we can win a very difficult stretch.”
