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The Warriors should have beat the Rockets at home on Wednesday night. Houston was without Kevin Durant, Steven Adams, and Tari Eason. The Warriors hit their first five shots and earned a 12-point lead at halftime.
But Golden State scored just 17 points in the third quarter and faded in the fourth, blowing a lead in a game that was indicative of some of the Warriors’ worst defeats to start the season.
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Wednesday’s loss dropped the Warriors to 10-10 through a quarter of the season and soured the mood of Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler — the team’s most vocal veterans.
“I think you’d agree, we should’ve won tonight,” Green said. “You have bad losses and you’re 10-10, guess what you are? F——— .500 team that loses games you should win. That’s what .500 teams are ...Very average team.”
During the 104-100 loss to Houston, Steph Curry took several big hits — on an Alperen Sengun screen, when Sengun dove for a loose ball and collided with his lower body, and when Amen Thompson rammed into him on a drive. Curry exited with a right quad contusion before the final horn, an injury not typically associated with significant missed time.
Everything changes if Curry is sidelined. But things aren’t all rainbows and sunshine for the Warriors with him at the moment, anyway.
“We don’t box out, we don’t go with the scouting report, we let anybody do whatever they want: open shots, getting to the paint, free throws,” Butler said after the loss. “It’s just sad.”
A Golden State Warriors player dribbles the basketball, closely guarded by two Houston Rockets defenders during a game.
The Rockets hounded Steph Curry defensively, and the Warriors’ star exited Wednesday’s game with an injury. |Source: Amber Pietz/The Standard
Houston, statistically one of the best offensive rebounding teams ever, took 17 more field goal attempts because the Rockets hauled in 25 offensive boards. The Warriors got into foul trouble early in the third quarter, allowing the Rockets to stampede to the charity stripe. Green locked down star Sengun, but second-year guard Reed Sheppard carved up Golden State’s perimeter defense for a career-high 29 points.
It was a bad loss, and not the Warriors’ first. They should’ve handled the depleted Rockets, but the Warriors probably should have also defeated the Bucks without Giannis Antetokounmpo, the skeleton-crew Pacers, the Blazers without their starting backcourt, and the Magic without Paolo Banchero.
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This is a team that’s already had leaders called out its competitive fire.Now, somewhat curiously, their defense is drawing ire.
Even after Wednesday, the Warriors rank 10th in defensive rating. Their offense, meanwhile, comes in at 22nd.
A Rockets player attempts a shot while two Warriors defenders raise their arms to block near the basketball hoop during a game.
The Warriors struggled to protect the rim against the Rockets on Wednesday night at Chase Center. |Source: Amber Pietz/The Standard
“Our defense is shit,” Green said. “Because it’s not necessarily the numbers. It’s like, how do you feel when you’re out there? And if it’s just letdown after letdown, it’s bigger than the numbers. Defense is about demeanor. So, if there’s letdown after letdown and it kills your demeanor, kills your bravado, then you’re just a soft team.
“So it’s bigger than the numbers. What does the other team feel when you’re defending them? And right now, they don’t feel no force. So even if you’re getting stops, like yeah we have great coaches, we’re going to have a good scheme. But what about the force? We don’t have that.”
The point of attack has been a consistent weakness for the Warriors through 20 games. Their best perimeter defenders are Moses Moody, Will Richard, and Gary Payton II, and they’re generally overextended as true stoppers. Curry, Brandin Podziemski, and Buddy Hield often allow straight-line drives into the lane or commit fouls trying to shuffle their feet.
Curry committed a brutal hand-check foul on the perimeter late in the shot clock against Aaron Holiday on Wednesday. Early in Monday’s win over the Jazz, an irate Steve Kerr called a timeout when Podziemski left the hot-handed Keyonte George wide open for his fourth 3-pointer.
Four basketball players reach up for the ball near the hoop during a contested rebound in a crowded arena.
Golden State allowed 25 offensive rebounds in a game it lost by just four points on Wednesday. |Source: Amber Pietz/The Standard
Defense and offense are connected. But poor offense shouldn’t be an excuse to let up defensively. That was one of Butler’s biggest points of frustration.
Letting offensive struggles bleed into the defensive end is like an error in the field taking a ballplayer out of their next at-bat. Is something like that surprising for a locker room with so many veterans?
“No, it’s not surprising,” Butler said. “Because I think a lot of our hustle and a lot of our everything is dictated by our offense. When we’re making shots, oh man, we’re celebrating, we’re cheering, we’re doing all those things. When we’re not, when the game’s not going our way, we put our heads down and we mope. We don’t box out, we don’t get back, we foul. We do all the bad things. But when it’s going good — some people call it front-running — when it’s going good, it’s all smiles.”
Although Butler insisted “we’ll be alright,” it’s definitely not all smiles at the moment for the .500 Warriors.