Warriors get reality check in loss to Denver
Golden State shows it isn't yet close to winners
SAN FRANCISCO >> Straggling Denver Nuggets celebrating Nikola Jokic's 39-foot game winner hadn't cleared the court before Steph Curry was in the locker room with his nose in the film rolling on his phone.
Curry typically waits to watch the film at home, but he couldn't wait that long. He needed to see how his Warriors let an 18-point lead slip within six minutes. The turning point was his bad pass leading to Jokic's shot, but within the Nuggets 25-4 run he didn't see botched defensive rotations or poorly executed offense.
He found something worse: A reality check.
At the peaks of their dynasty, the Warriors could fall back on a familiar identity to endure rough stretches. They knew who would start and who would close; that Draymond Green was good for a game-saving stop, or that Curry and Klay Thompson could break free for a clutch shot. Perhaps most importantly, all three had a supporting cast whose muscle memory instinctively danced a rhythm that made these things happen.
The reality check is trite, but true. These Warriors don't know how to win together. The Nuggets do. No double-digit lead is big enough for the NBA's natural selection.
That explains Golden State now losing four games this year by which they led by at least 18 points.
“(The Nuggets) have a chemistry and they know — whether they make or miss shots — what to do,” Curry said. “We haven't established that, so when things start going wrong, (everyone is) looking around. It's within our control to figure that out, but there have been too many situations like that where we play a hell of a game and have nothing to show for it.
“Good teams know who they are and find ways to win and do it consistently and we haven't checked any of those boxes. No matter how experienced we are, every team is unique.”
That desperation to find an identity shows most in the Warriors' sometimes head-scratching rotation pattern. Coach Steve Kerr is playing whack-a-mole with his lineups, trying to fill the gaping defensive void left by Green's indefinite suspension while lathering up the right dynamic on offense. At times he leans on his inconsistent veterans in hopes that they may resuscitate that warm, familiar cadence. Other times he throws the keys to the younger generation for a jump start.
Rarely have the Warriors found the right balance between both groups. With Green gone and onto a 12th starting five over 34 games, they're not close to finding even one five-man group that completes a puzzle. Moreover, the puzzle pieces are scattered, floating.
On Thursday, Jonathan Kuminga was having his way with Jamal Murray, attacking the weak man on defense for some much-needed downhill offense outside of Curry and Thompson's hot hands. He had 16 points, going 5-of-7 from the field and getting to the line seven times. Kuminga was taken out for Andrew Wiggins mid-way through the third quarter when the Warriors started to build a double-digit lead.
The Nuggets creeped back in around the fourth quarter when Curry was struggling to create offense off broken plays and no one else subbed in and out of the final six — Thompson, Chris Paul, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Kevon Looney, Dario Saric or Brandin Podziemski — could pick up the slack. Kuminga stayed on the bench for the entire fourth quarter.
“His normal time to go back in would have been around the five-, six-minute mark,” Kerr said. “Wiggs was playing great, we were rolling, we were up 18, 19, whatever it was. So we just stayed with them. At that point it didn't feel like the right thing to do. (Kuminga) had been sitting for a while so I stayed with the group that was out there, and obviously we couldn't close it out.”
It's not the first time Kuminga sat out despite a strong showing.
“I really don't have much to say about that,” Kuminga said. “The rest of the guys were playing good, we had a lead, everybody was happy…There was no explanation. I was just on the bench cheering, just like another teammate. Hyped because we were in it. I really don't know. I didn't see it coming at all, especially the way I was playing.”