The Golden State Warriors downsized for the second straight game on Thursday night. Unlike against the Oklahoma City Thunder 48 hours earlier, though, the defending champions went super small in another matchup with the rival Memphis Grizzlies, starting Jordan Poole and Donte DiVincenzo next to Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green with both Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga sidelined.

“We've gotten off to bad starts in six, seven straight games, so we were looking for a little daylight early in the game,” Steve Kerr said on the postgame podium. “Memphis is a good defensive team, so we wanted to spread 'em out and hopefully get some good shots early. We didn't do that.”

The Warriors fell to the Grizzlies 131-110 on Thursday, their eighth straight loss on the road—where they own a bottom-three defensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass.

Another horrendous first quarter set the tone for a blowout defeat, Memphis dominating its smaller foes on the inside, running off Golden State misses and turnovers while raining threes in the halfcourt. The Dubs trailed 48-28 heading into the second quarter and by 18 points at intermission, marking the seventh consecutive game they were down double-digits at some point before halftime.

Kerr went back to a more traditional opening unit for the second half by replacing DiVincenzo with Kevon Looney. That change and some long-range shooting regression from both sides sparked a Golden State rally in the third quarter, but an inability to contain the ball and clean the defensive glass—issues present from the opening tip—afterwards doomed the Dubs' hopes of a comeback victory.

“In hindsight, probably got a little too cute with that,” Kerr said of Golden State starting four guards. “But we are where we are—we're searching a little bit on the road. Took a gamble with that and it didn't pay off.”