Worst loss of season spares team Jazz, Thunder matchups
SALT LAKE CITY — The Warriors entered their regular-season finale Tuesday night staring down a strange question: Would they try to win a game that they’d benefit from losing?
Hours before tip-off, head coach Steve Kerr told reporters that his team’s approach wouldn’t change just because falling to the Jazz would assure Golden State of not facing Oklahoma City or Utah — two potentially daunting matchups — in the first round of the playoffs.
Kerr’s pregame message didn’t seem to resonate with his players, however, as the Warriors stumbled
through a 119-79 loss to Utah at Vivint Smart Home Arena.
In losing for the third time in four games, Golden State hardly resembled a defending NBA champion poised to chase its third title in four years. A group known for a selfless brand of basketball endured enough absentminded follies to fill an episode of the blooper reel “Shaqtin’ a Fool.”
Golden State trailed by 17 at the end of the first quarter, 29 at halftime and 37 at the end of the third. By the time the final buzzer sounded on a regular season that has failed to meet lofty outside expectations, the Warriors wrestled with their most lopsided loss of the season, by 40 points, eclipsing a 30-point blowout at this same arena Jan. 30.
“We got smacked,” guard Klay Thompson said. “There’s no way around it.”
Now, as Golden State waits to learn which team it will play in the first round of the playoffs, it must try to figure out how to thrive without Stephen Curry. In their past 17 games — Curry played significant minutes in only one of them — the Warriors are 7-10. With Curry expected to miss the first round with a sprained left MCL, Golden State is in search of consistency, on offense and defense.
Video from Tuesday’s drubbing won’t help much. Facing a team trying to secure homecourt advantage in the first round, the Warriors looked devoid of motivation. It has been weeks since Golden State learned it was locked into the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed behind Houston.
A club known for its egalitarian, movement-heavy system gave way to repeated isolation plays with little flow or plan. The Warriors had 14 assists, less than half of their season average.
They posted their secondlowest point total of the season as Utah enjoyed wide-open looks and shot 53.3 percent from the field. The Jazz’s Rookie of the Year candidate, Donovan Mitchell, needed only 12 shots and 26 minutes to score 22 points on a night he set the NBA rookie record for threepointers in a season.
Late in the second quarter, he curled off a screen and crossed over Draymond Green so badly that Green crumpled to the floor. It was just one of more than a dozen bloopers Golden State surely won’t want to revisit. There were also the back-to-back, wide-open thirdquarter jumpers Thompson missed, the Kevin Durant pass that Rudy Gobert swatted at the rim, and the time Durant ran by Joe Ingles, only to see Ingles hit an uncontested layup.
“We need a competitive spirit, we need the juice, we need the joy, and we haven’t had much of that,” Kerr said. “So, we have got to get right, and we’ve got to get our minds right.”
Entering the final day of the NBA’s regular season Wednesday, the Warriors could play any of four teams — New Orleans, Denver, San Antonio or Minnesota — in the first round. More pressing to Golden State, however, is this: Has the past month been merely the result of a bored team awaiting the games that matter? When the postseason arrives this weekend, can the Warriors become the group many expected?
After Tuesday’s shellacking, Kerr told his players to go home, enjoy their day off Wednesday and, by the start of practice Thursday, be ready for the playoffs.
“I think there should always be a question in your mind if that switch is going to flip,” Green said. “As a basketball player, you know that it just doesn’t work like that. Nonetheless, I think if anybody’s capable of it, we are.”