Without Curry and Durant, Warriors fall to Kings.
Maybe the Warriors can weather the absence of one MVP — but not two.
Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant both missed Monday night’s game against Sacramento. And it showed down the stretch, as the Kings surged in the closing minutes to snatch a 110-106 victory at Oracle Arena.
The Warriors missed their final seven shots from the field, including four by Klay Thompson. The Kings closed on an 8-0 run to win in Oakland for the first time since March 2013.
Thompson led the Warriors with 21 points, and Patrick McCaw added 16 points and seven assists in his first start of the season. Willie CauleyStein led the Kings with 19 points.
For most of the night, Golden State seemed equipped to survive without Curry and Durant. Then,
with the outcome hanging in the balance, the Warriors abandoned their perpetual motion on offense and turned into statues.
Thompson ended up forcing shots, mostly because he didn’t have a viable alternative.
“I didn’t love the shots down the stretch, but we couldn’t get anything going to the basket,” head coach Steve Kerr said.
Or, as forward Draymond Green said, “We got the ball to Klay and everybody else just stood. We’ve got to keep moving.”
Green and his crew also faltered defensively. They struggled to prevent backup point guard Frank Mason from penetrating, and CauleyStein had his way in the paint. The Kings shot 53.2 percent from the field.
Here’s some context for that stat: The Warriors entered the game leading the NBA in field-goal-percentage defense, allowing opponents to shoot 42.7. And the Kings ranked No. 28 in the league (out of 30 teams) in field-goal percentage, at 43.4.
So maybe the Warriors missed Curry and Durant on defense, too.
“Overall, our defensive effort wasn’t there tonight,” Kerr said. “We didn’t have the juice we needed to stop them.”
The Warriors entered the game 4-0 this season without Durant (sprained ankle) and 1-0 without Curry (bruised hand). This was their first game without both players, who together have three MVP awards and are averaging 50.7 points per game this season.
Even so, Thompson gave the Warriors a 106-102 lead with a three-pointer from the corner with 3:11 remaining. Those turned out to be Golden State’s final points of the night.
The Kings tied the game on two Garrett Temple free throws and a resounding dunk from Cauley-Stein. After Thompson missed two more shots, Sacramento’s Bogdan Bogdanovic made a tough bank shot in the lane — over Green — with 12.6 seconds left. That pushed the Kings ahead 108-106.
The Warriors had one more chance — Thompson again missed a contested threepoint try, with six seconds left — and Bogdanovic sealed the deal with two free throws.
Golden State had won eight consecutive games against the Kings in Oakland. The Warriors’ last loss to Sacramento at Oracle occurred on March 27, 2013, more than two full years before Curry and Co. earned their first NBA title.
Curry’s absence Monday night paved the way for McCaw to step into the lineup. He had become somewhat of a forgotten man in the first 20 games, often stuck on the bench behind fellow wing reserves Nick Young and Omri Casspi.
Shaun Livingston would have been the logical choice to start in Curry’s place, but Kerr tapped McCaw instead. Kerr called it a “good opportunity” for McCaw, who also has the youth and quickness to cover crazy-fast Kings rookie De’Aaron Fox.
The Warriors led by only two points at halftime (55-53), but that wasn’t a terrible predicament given their missing MVPs and Thompson’s subpar first-half shooting. He went 3-for-11 in the half, including 1-for-4 from threepoint distance, before heating up in the third quarter.
In the end, it wasn’t enough to win without Curry and Durant.
“We’ve closed out games before,” Livingston said. “We can do better without those guys.”