Midway through the third quarter of Thursday’s game between the Warriors and Lakers, LeBron James rose up from the right side of the floor and swished a 24-foot 3-pointer. The onslaught was on.
TV cameras caught Steph Curry’s reaction from the bench. He just shook his head slowly, because that’s all he can do right now.
The Warriors struggled badly on offense in their first game back from the All-Star break, losing a 124-111 contest that featured a bevy of scoring droughts from Golden State.
Without Curry and Andrew Wiggins, who missed his second straight game due to a personal family matter, the Warriors are going to need to find ways to generate offense. They shot just 38.1 percent from the floor Thursday night and continue to look like a play-in team, despite the league’s largest payroll.
Klay Thompson (22 points) and Jordan Poole (16 points) went a combined 11-of-32 from the field, on a night when the entire offense was cold. The lone Warriors player with a commendable performance was Kevon Looney, who finished with 10 points, 15 rebounds and a team best -1 plus/minus in 20 minutes off the bench. Ty Jerome scored 20 and Patrick Baldwin Jr. chipped in 11, but a lot of those points came when the game was decided.
The Warriors trailed by as many as 28 and didn’t cut the deficit closer than nine after the Lakers opened up the second half with a 9-2 run. Golden State didn’t respond well to all the missed buckets, getting outscored 29-8 on fast break points.
Golden State is now 2-4 in the six games since Curry injured his leg Feb. 4. He has returned to doing individual on-court work but will miss at least the next three contests before being evaluated next Wednesday. With 23 games left in the season, there’s nowhere to hide for the Warriors.
The Dubs will return to Chase Center for tomorrow’s back-to-back matchup against the Houston Rockets, who carry the league’s worst record at 13-45. After losing four of their past five, the Warriors need to get a win Friday night, as they’re currently the No. 10 seed in the West. The Lakers, the conference’s No. 13 seed, is just 1.5 games back.
At this point, serious doubts about the Dubs dynasty have to be creeping in for this sub-.500 team. They overcame injuries last year but had a bigger cushion of victories. Now just making it into the top six seeds seems like a huge task.
