No one expected the Golden State Warriors to beat the Brookyn Nets on Wednesday.

Not with Klay Thompson joining Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Donte DiVincenzo and JaMychal Green on the bench. Not with Kevin Durant and the surging Nets re-staking their claim as a top-tier Eastern Conference contender. And certainly not as the defending champs played on the second night of a tough back-to-back, the culmination of a frantic six-game, nine-day road trip.

Still, you'd expect almost any collection of NBA players imaginable to put up a better fight against Brooklyn than the woefully short-handed Warriors did in the first half at Barclays Center.

Golden State trailed 46-17 at the end of the first quarter. Not only is that the most points the Warriors have allowed in the opening stanza this season, but their 29-point deficit tied a franchise record for the worst first quarter differential in franchise history.

Steve Kerr's team only reached further depths from there.

The Nets led by the laughable score of 91-51 at halftime, dominating in pretty much every facet of the game. They shot just below 70% from the field; hit 13-of-19 from beyond the arc; racked up 25 assists; and outscored Golden State 19-0 in fastbreak points and 23-0 in points off turnovers.

Brooklyn's 91 first half points, unsurprisingly, set a new Warriors record for points surrendered in the first half.

Maybe most telling of Golden State's increasingly dire straits as the season's halfway mark fast approaches, though? Old friend Kevin Durant had an easy 21 points on 8-of-9 shooting in the first half, outscoring the Warriors' makeshift starting lineup all by himself.

Golden State's opening five of Jordan Poole, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga, Draymond Green and Kevon Looney combined for 20 first-half points on Wednesday, shooting 8-of-26 overall.

Again, nobody expected this Warriors team to beat with the Nets. Merely competing with Brooklyn for 24 minutes—not unlike Tuesday's first half in a blowout loss to the New York Knicks—would've been close to a moral victory for Golden State, key heading into its highly anticipated Christmas day matchup tilt with the rival Memphis Grizzlies.

The only good news? The Warriors have a few days to lick their wounds before regrouping at Chase Center, bound to ring in the holiday with several reinforcements—including Wiggins—even as Curry remains sidelined by a shoulder injury.

Still, rest assured Golden State's notoriously competitive leaders will struggle to find that silver lining in the immediate aftermath of a game their team made all the wrong kinds of history, no matter the context behind it.