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Steph Curry passed Michael Jordan for the most 40-point games after turning 30 years old. He added to his record of games with at least 11 3-pointers, a claim of which he has more than four times anyone else. He destroyed everything Portland sent at him, beating mismatches off the dribble and making defenders fly past him on the perimeter with head fakes.
Yet his 48-point night came in a 136-131 loss. For a third time this season, the Blazers defeated the Warriors, this time in Portland. Curry scored 21 points in the fourth quarter, but smoked a layup that would’ve given Golden State (13-14) a lead with 30 seconds left.
“When you make 24 3s, Steph makes 12 of them, you should win the game,” Steve Kerr said postgame. “Obviously couldn’t stop them.”
Sunday night was the second straight game the Warriors couldn’t capitalize on a vintage Curry performance. A 17-0 run in the fourth quarter by the Timberwolves swung Friday night’s game, and a 12-0 Portland burst in Sunday’s fourth quarter handed the Warriors two straight defeats since Curry returned from his quad injury.
In those two contests, Curry has scored a cumulative 87 points on 18-for-34 (53%) from behind the 3-point arc.
The loss to Portland was a distillation of the angst behind the Warriors’ struggles since 2022 to capitalize on what’s left of Curry’s brilliance. The Warriors shifted their starting lineup again, pairing Draymond Green with Quinten Post in the frontcourt. But the roster is full of role players outside of Curry and Jimmy Butler, and it’s tough for Kerr to know which ones will or won’t show up on a given night (Moses Moody played great against Minnesota, but not so much against the Blazers; the inverse for Brandin Podziemski; Pat Spencer went from the starting lineup to six spot minutes; Jonathan Kuminga got a third straight DNP).
More than anything against the Blazers, Golden State’s defense let Curry down. The Warriors allowed 75 points in the second half alone as they defended like traffic cones on the perimeter, giving Blazers driving lanes that usually turned into open 3s.
The Blazers, ranked 30th in the league in 3-point percentage, shot 20-for-39 from distance on Sunday. In their three games against the Warriors, the Blazers have shot 44% from deep. Against everyone else, they’ve shot 32%.
It’s where the Warriors’ struggles at the point of attack have reared most viscerally. Just look at how wide open Jerami Grant is on these big corner 3s in the fourth quarter.
The second play came in transition, but each occurred because the Warriors needed to rotate into the paint to prevent a layup. Even the worst shooting team in the league will make a defense pay for giving them empty-gym shots. These are NBA players, after all.
The Warriors entered Sunday ranked fourth in the league in defensive rating. But the Blazers have exposed them with their plethora of relentlessly attacking wings. Portland has now turned in the two highest-scoring outputs against the Warriors this season (139 and 136 points).
On offense behind Curry, the Warriors got a terrific game from Brandin Podziemski (12 points, seven rebounds, six assists, one turnover) and 14 first-half points from Draymond Green. But Green committed eight of the team’s 18 turnovers, of which Portland scored 24 points from.
“He’s just got to find a way to walk that line,” Kerr said. “He’s an incredible player, we’d be in big trouble without him. But he’s got to have three turnovers instead of eight.”
Butler went 3-for-11 from the field, and Kerr took accountability for not putting him in prime positions to score as frequently as the Warriors did last year.
“I don’t really consider Jimmy’s game to be dependent on how many shots he gets, but we do need his scoring,” Kerr said. “We do need his playmaking.”
Seven Warriors reached double figures, led by the 37-year-old Curry. Shooting over 50% from both the field and 3-point land should be an automatic victory.
Not with how Golden State played defensively.
Grant and Shaedon Sharpe each poured in 35 points. Deni Avdija lived in the lane en route to 26 points, seven rebounds, and eight assists. Portland scored 12 points in the final 2:19, bringing the Warriors to just 5-9 in clutch situations.
That’s inexcusable for a Curry team.
“We’re just not closing games,” Kerr said.