Fast Break - Page 21 of 206 - Golden State Warriors Fan Blog (2024)

The last time the Golden State Warriors took on the Washington Wizards, the trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green played real basketball together for the first time in over 1000 days. That soaring win, in which Steph put up 47 points, itself feels like it happened 1000 days ago, as the Dubs season has gone off the rails in the days since. Steph is still injured, nursing a foot sprain that has him rehabbing back in the Bay Area. The Warriors have blown games to the Spurs, Magic, and Hawks. And today, against the same Wizards team that they demolished at home, the Dubs got demolished themselves, allowing Washington to shoot 52.4% from the field and 57.1% (!) from deep en route to a 123-115 victory. The Wizards did all of this, mind you, without Bradley Beal and Kyle Kuzma, easily two of their best players. There isn’t a lot to unpack about this loss that hasn’t been written about before, so I’ll keep it brief. But suffice it to say, the Warriors are running out of time to turn this ship around, and their problems run deeper than merely the absence of Stephen Curry.

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I was surprisingly not too upset after this game. Maybe it was the afterglow of the Saint Peter’s Peaco*cks making it to the Elite Eight against all odds. Maybe it was the combined brilliance of Jordan Poole and Klay Thompson, who were scorching hot early and, despite some struggles in the second half, combined for 61 points on 22-48 shooting from the field and 13 made triples. Maybe it was the fact that Gary Payton II played a whopping 30 impactful minutes and was an absolute menace on defense and on the offensive glass. And maybe it was the fight shown by the Dubs’ lineup that dominated the fourth quarter, nearly erasing an 18 point fourth quarter deficit to steal an improbable win on the road. But I think ultimately I wasn’t upset because Steve Kerr essentially issued an ultimatum after the game. When asked about his lineup combinations late in the game, in particular why Andrew Wiggins didn’t play at all in the fourth and why Draymond Green only stepped on the court for a few seconds, Kerr didn’t mince words. He called his decision “obvious”, and stated bluntly, “they were the only group who got stops.” Ouch. At the end of the day, the Dubs did more than enough offensively, even if you account for their cold spells. But the backbreaking runs they gave up to close the second and third quarters essentially put this game out of reach. You can point out, rightfully, that the Dubs’ offense was far too dependent on Poole and Klay – aside from those two, the only other Warrior in double figures was Gary Payton II. But the adage “defense wins championships” is very much true in basketball, and the Dubs played little to no defense. Most culpable, in my eyes, was the Warriors’ starting frontcourt – in particular Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Kuminga, and Draymond Green. One of those players gets a pass for being a 19 year old rookie, thrust into a starting role with unfamiliar players around him. The other two do not, in my most humble opinion. The Warriors’ 121-110 loss thankfully does not affect their postseason seeding, as all of the teams chasing the Dubs conspired to lose today. But the Dubs need to get better defensively, and that burden, incredibly, falls on their purported elite defenders, rather than their scrappy bench mob.

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I’ll be very honest. I made the grave mistake of assuming that NBA games are played on paper. After last night’s devastating loss to the Orlando Magic, one of the worst teams in the association, and the (expected) news that Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Otto Porter Jr. would join Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala and James Wiseman on the inactives list, tonight had “L” written all over it. So much so, in fact, that I went for a run during the first half (I was listening in on the game via YouTube TV) and hit the road in the second half to drive up to Oakland to meet some old friends for dinner. Silly old me. The Dubs have run hot and cold all year; why would an incredibly shorthanded game on the business end of a back-to-back be any different? And so I watched, listened, watched some more, and finally listened as the Warriors pulled off one of the great upsets of this wacky NBA season, as they took down the Eastern Conference-leading Miami Heat on the road and nearly caused a PJ Carlesimo / Latrell Sprewell-style incident on the Heat bench, as Erik Spoelstra and Jimmy Butler nearly came to blows during a timeout. Led by a flaming-hot Jordan Poole, critical scoring off the bench from Damion Lee, another monster performance from Jonathan Kuminga, and (finally) 20+ points, much needed aggression, and perfect free throw shooting from Andrew Wiggins, the Dubs, victims of a punking in Orlando last night, punked the Heat themselves 118-104. This critical victory keeps the Dubs 3 games clear of the Jazz for the 3 seed and gives them some momentum as they continue on this lengthy road trip.

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I wasn’t being facetious or faux witty when I said pre-game that the W’s are playing this season in reverse. After last night’s Magic game, the next time the W’s have a couple days off, they’ll be heading back to training camp.

It’s hard to imagine a more systematic collapse than the one we’ve been watching (ever-hope-against-hopefully) the second half of this season. Hard to imagine. Even harder to explain. But at this point it doesn’t appear that all the King’s horses and all the King’s men can put it all back together again.

And yet…

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In the four days since the Golden State Warriors suffered a home loss at the hands of the Boston Celtics, the Dubs have received some pretty dire injury news. Stephen Curry’s ankle tweak turned out to be a foot ligament sprain, and he will be re-evaluated in 2 weeks. Gary Payton II is still out for the Dubs, as is Andre Iguodala. And James Wiseman, whose return would at least let him salvage a semblance of progress in his sophom*ore season, was ruled out indefinitely yesterday, as his surgically-repaired knee continues to act up. With the Dubs searching desperately for some rhythm heading into the postseason, they have one last contest at home with a Sunday-evening game against the San Antonio Spurs, before embarking on a lengthy road trip. As always, leave your comments below, and go Warriors!

Apologies for failing to get the pregame post up – totally slipped my mind. Since this format was such a hit last time out, we’re running back the running diary! I started jotting down thoughts as soon as I got into Chase Center. They are reproduced below almost exactly, lightly edited for content and clarity.

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We’re trying out a new column format tonight – I’m going to be keeping a running diary throughout the game. I’ve reproduced it almost exactly below, with a few light edits for clarity:

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The last time I availed myself of the Fast Break press credential and went to a Warriors game, Stephen Curry was just returning from a hand injury and the word “pandemic” was still a possibly grim future rather than a multiyear reality. Tonight, I returned to Chase Center as a writer to see the Warriors and Bucks face off in a matchup between the defending champions and a team with championship aspirations. What Dubs fans were treated to was a clinic on exploiting gravity and turning defensive attention into opportunities, as the Bucks decided that they’d employ an “anyone but Steph” defensive strategy. If the Bucks’ goal was to limit Steph’s offensive prowess, they succeeded – he finished the game with just 8 points and took just 7 shots. But if their goal was to win, their strategy failed mightily, as after a deadlocked first quarter the Warriors went up big and never looked back. To a degree, the Bucks were a victim of circ*mstance, as Steve Kerr elected to start the trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Jordan Poole together for the first time ever. The Bucks had no answer for that kind of offensive firepower, as Klay scored 38 and Poole had 30 of his own. But the Bucks also proceeded to shoot themselves in the proverbial foot repeatedly by playing drop coverage, going under screens on the perimeter, and (if it is even possible) over-defending Steph to a comical degree. The Warriors’ 122-109 victory wasn’t really as close as the final score indicated, a few Milwaukee surges excepted. With Draymond Green on the bench in street clothes and on track to return on Monday, and James Wiseman scheduled to play with the Sea Dubs at Chase Center tomorrow, things are trending up in Warriorsland. But before looking too far ahead, I do want to live in the moment and bask in the glory of a wonderful win.

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Viggy here. Well, that was something, wasn’t it? After a hard fought battle both ways, the Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets again found themselves locked into a crunch-time duel, and if I’m being honest the Warriors were the team on the ropes, having given up an 8-0 run after taking a 6 point lead in the fourth quarter. If you polled Dubs fans worldwide and asked them what their confidence level was, they’d probably quote you a very low number. And who could blame them! The Dubs have lost a ton of winnable games over their recent mega-slump, and many of them have been characterized by the Warriors laying a teamwide egg in the clutch. Tonight, things went very differently, as the Dubs, rather than wilting, instead pitched a shutout, ending the game on a 13-0 run that allowed them to head home with a much-needed 113-102 victory. In the process of earning this victory, the Dubs learned a few things about themselves, and found a few interesting wrinkles that should make them extra dangerous come playoff time.

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16 regular season games remaining. Maybe 14 left with Draymond back. And hopefully something close to that with Wiseman. And GP2. And Iguodala. And Porter.

Draymond and Iguodala when fully healthy won’t need that much time. Nor the team with them. Still there’s a lot to adjust and sort out and re-integrate in the next three weeks—before, hopefully, fine-tuning a core playoff rotation (albeit with depth beyond that core) during the final five regular season games in April.

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