Warriors’ quest to escape mediocrity keeps slamming headfirst into iron ceiling originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
The Warriors were warned late in the third quarter, smacked late in the fourth quarter, stomped into defeat in overtime and their long season of futility continues to slog forth.
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They were demolished Sunday by the Toronto Raptors, who erased multiple double-digit deficits to pin them with a 141-127 overtime loss that flattened Golden State’s three-game win streak, halted any momentum that might have been built over the past week and, once again, put optimism on pause.
“It sucks,” coach Steve Kerr told reporters at Scotiabank Arena. “We’re on a little bit of a run. We’ve got a chance for some momentum, we control the whole game, and we let it slip.”
“We did enough to win, gave ourselves up a good cushion,” Stephen Curry said. “Just couldn’t get a rebound in too many you know turnovers it turned up the pressure and we just didn’t have enough answers down the stretch.”
If this feels familiar, it should. The Warriors this season are 16-16, have lost 11 of 17 “clutch” games – within five points over the final five minutes – and this marks the seventh time their opponent fought through a double-digit deficit to claim victory.
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The Warriors’ preseason vision of not only making the playoffs but establishing an extended postseason run keeps slamming into reality.
The repetitive win/lose pattern of this season has left the team’s coaches and players citing the same problems that are addressed and temporarily solved – turnovers, points in the paint, second- and third-chance shots – only to consistently relapse.
So, naturally, after the Warriors gave Toronto 35 points off 21 turnovers – and often looked as if they had no idea how to break a full-court press – Kerr responded in a way he has all too often this season. He held up his finger and pointed it directly at himself.
“It was just turnovers, end of the third and end of the fourth, we just got scattered,” he said. “I’ve got to get us better organized during those stretches. That’s on me. They turned up the pressure, we didn’t handle it well and they scored 35 points off our turnovers. That was the game.”
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The final 54 seconds of the third quarter provided a warning, as the Warriors watched their lead shrink from 12 to four by giving the Raptors eight points off turnovers.
The final 92 seconds of regulation raised the specter of doom, as the Warriors committed three turnovers, wiping out their seven-point (120-113) lead, leaving the game tied and setting up OT.
Toronto owned OT, outscoring the Warriors 19-5 – make it 28-7 over the final six minutes, 32 seconds.
When the Raptors turned up their pressure defense, the Warriors collapsed like a toothpick tent. The seven turnovers that cost them the game were committed by veterans and youngsters alike: Jimmy Butler III, two; and one each by Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Gary Payton II, Brandin Podziemski and rookie Will Richard.
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“It was just our spacing,” Podziemski said. “We honestly haven’t worked on teams running and trapping like that, especially in the backcourt. I think we just got to fix our spacing when it comes to our alignment when there’s two people on the ball.”
This is the second time this season the Warriors took the floor chasing their fourth consecutive victory – and the second time a younger, bigger, quicker NBA team impolitely informed them that it will be difficult for their current roster to win with anything remotely resembling consistency.
Golden State’s athletically challenged roster – emphatically so with Jonathan Kuminga racking up DNP-CDs – once again revealed itself as likely to struggle against lengthy active, athletic teams.
Unfortunately, for the Warriors, that description applies to most NBA teams.
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“It’s kind of the nature of the way the league is going,” Curry said. “You have a couple of guys who are on-ball defenders, using their length and athleticism. And then you have guys on the back end who are able to kind of shoot the passing lanes or again use that length to cut off angles.”
Golden State’s current roster has, and will continue to have, difficulty overcoming such defenses – particularly when opponents intensify down the stretch. It’s visible in the seven double-digit leads blown and clutch-game losses.
None of the Warriors are enjoying this. But their quest to escape mediocrity keeps hitting an iron ceiling that, with each ugly loss, becomes more difficult to imagine them cutting through.
