The Warriors lost badly to the Toronto Raptors. A valiant third quarter attempt to get back in the game was fruitless in the 133-118 loss.
Here are three takeaways from the loss:
Too flat to start, despite a hopeful third
The starting lineup - of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Kuminga and Trayce Jackson-Davis - was not effective. That's putting it lightly. Those latter three were all benched to open the second half.
Steve Kerr's thesis that Wiggins and Kuminga cannot coexist was validated, though that seems more the fault of Wiggins, who continues to look like a shell of himself (3 points, 1-of-6, 2 rebounds, one assist, one turnover). It's his second-straight game with 3 points and 2 rebounds.
To open the second half, which began with a 27-point deficit, it was Brandin Podziemski, Dario Saric and Kevon Looney instead of Kuminga, Wiggins and Jackson-Davis.
That provided a clear jolt, even if a Pascal Siakam 3-pointer quieted it. Curry scored his first field goal of the game, a reverse layup, immediately after.
They couldn't quite seem to get the lid off the basket, but the relentless effort - especially on the offensive glass - by the halftime substitutions was notable. They sparked a 17-9 run that cut the Toronto lead to 19 points.
When Saric and Looney came out of the game with 6:45 left in the third for Kuminga and Jackson-Davis, Jackson-Davis immediately kept up the effort. He grabbed an offensive rebound, then fed a red-hot Klay Thompson for a 3-pointer.
Kuminga hit a bail-out 3, followed by a Thompson dish to a cutting Jackson-Davis for a free score. That still left a 16-point deficit. Another miss from Curry stole that energy, but the Warriors persisted without him.
With 3:02 left in the third quarter, Thompson hit another 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 13 points.
It got down as low as nine points, with Thompson finishing the third quarter with 25 points (10-of-15, 5-of-7 from deep).
Thompson was one of three double-digit scorer to shoot at least 50 percent from the field.
The other two were Jackson-Davis (16 points on 8-of-9 shooting, 11 rebounds, one assists, a couple blocks) and Moses Moody, who was excellent. Moody scored 21 points (7-of-10) with 3 rebounds, an assist and a steal. His effort was impressive.
Even as they fell back down by 14 at the end of the third, they were trying. Kuminga got into it with Gary Trent Jr. as he was surrounded by a couple other Raptors and continued talking even after the two were separated by officials. He, and a few others, at least seemed like they were trying.
This should not be misinterpreted as praising feel-good stretch from a bad loss. The results weren't close to being there. But there were at least signs of life by a handful of players, which indicates this team is, well, capable of showing signs of life.
The problem, as will be discussed further below, is that their defense in every other quarter was horrific, and they - Steph Curry especially - could not hit threes.
Defense? Defense?? We're talking about defense???
What is defense, really? Is it real? A social construct? Something we tell ourselves at night to feel comfortable about this crazy world we live in?
This, we have to assume, is what the Warriors were thinking heading into Sunday night.
To say they lacked an understanding of the fundamental concept of defense would be a gross understatement. Don't take it from me. Take it from Warriors broadcaster Bob Fitzgerald. Here was his assessment of the second quarter:
"The Warriors are just being destroyed defensively right now."
Golden State was demolished in the first half. R.J. Barrett alone had 26 points (10-of-13, 5-of-6 from deep).
The entire first half, it looked like the Raptors were playing a different sport. They were quicker, more athletic, and more decisive in every aspect, frequently getting wide open cutters or 3-point looks.
They finished an absurd 58.5 percent from the field and were 15-of-33 (45.5 percent) from deep. They had six double-digit scorers, all of whom shot at least 60 percent from the floor.
There is a strong case that the Warriors simply need to be more committed on both ends, that they simply need to have better intent and execution. The other side of that is an argument that they are aging in an NBA that is quickly outpacing them at what was once their game.
*ducks* Can we talk about Steph?
The first half was just the third time Stephen Curry failed to secure a field goal with at least seven attempts. He had 2 points and was 0-for-7 and 0-for-4 from deep.
With the Warriors trailing by more than 20 in the fourth, he was sent to the bench. It made it the second time this season that he finished a game without scoring from three.
It was not for lack of trying, but nothing went in. Curry finished with 9 points on 2-of-14 shooting and 0-of-9 from deep with 6 assists and a rebound.
Podziemski (1-of-8 from deep) was also poor from long range. As a team, Golden State was just 14-of-46 from 3-point range (30.4 percent). But that effort starts and ends with Curry.
Curry's 9 points and 0 made threes are the second time this season he's had fewer than 10 points and no made 3-pointers (vs. Portland, 12/17.)
Before this season, he had not scored 10 or fewer points with no made 3s since 2018 (which happened twice). Before that, he hadn't done it since 2013. It's just the 27th time in 1,063 career games that Curry has done this.
This is all to say, it is extraordinarily rare for Curry to shoot this poorly.
But... BUT*whispers* it does seem like his off nights are happening more frequently.
At the very least, he and Thompson were unable to come through in that brutal, fourth quarter collapse to the Nuggets. They looked gassed. Curry looked like he had nothing in the tank Sunday night.
Given that he is 35, that should be expected. No one wants to consider that Curry could, in fact, be declining.
And to be clear, to say he is declining is not to say he's not capable of leading a team, or being a top-10 player. Draymond Green's return may be exactly what he needs to get his juice back. But that certainly seems a slightly rose-tinted view at this moment.
As the pieces around him have aged with him, and the younger pieces haven't quite aligned the last couple years, we may have to wonder if Curry's entering a stage where he can't carry the superhuman weight we've come to expect him to always carry.