Broken, bloodied, battered, bruised, beaten
MEMPHIS — The Golden State Warriors absorbed a bruising 106-101 loss to the Grizzlies on Tuesday night at FedEx Forum as Memphis tied the Western Conference semifinals 1-1. Here are the key takeaways as the series moves to San Francisco.
Bruises: Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told reporters Tuesday afternoon at shootaround that this was going to be the most physical game his team will play all season. It didn’t take long after tip-off for that statement to be proven true.
Gary Payton II, who started again for the Warriors in Game 2 as a defensive counter to guard Ja Morant, was driving into the paint for a lefthanded layup early in the first quarter with Golden State trailing 8-0 when he was hit in the head from behind by Memphis’ Dillon Brooks. Payton landed awkwardly on his left arm and stayed down while being looked at by the Warriors’ training staff. Brooks was assessed a flagrant-2 foul and ejected.
“It was kind of out of line in terms of a defenseless player going up for a layup and him taking a huge wind-up,” Stephen Curry said. “Everything bad that could’ve happened in that situation did.”
Payton got up, made 1 of 2 free-throw tries, then went back to the locker room for X-rays with a left elbow injury and did not return. It was announced that Payton had suffered a fractured elbow.
At the end of the first quarter, Kerr told TNT’s Jared Greenberg, “That wasn’t physical, that was dirty.”
When play resumed following Payton’s technical foul shots, Curry threw a bad pass and it was stolen by Memphis’ Xavier Tillman. Fighting to secure the loose ball, Tillman inadvertently elbowed Draymond Green in the face. Green joined Payton back in the locker room with 8:54 left in the first quarter, but he was back on the court to start the second after receiving stitches for a right eye laceration. Green’s eye appeared swollen shut, but he finished with six points, 10 rebounds and seven assists in 32 minutes.
“There was an elbow. I don’t know if it was inadvertent or not, but I really don’t care,” Green said
The physicality of Game 2 didn’t end there. Memphis’ Brandon Clarke was whistled for an offensive foul after setting a hard illegal screen on Curry. Curry got up with a bloody hand.
That set the tone. There were 43 combined fouls,.
“We knew coming out that this game was going to be physical,” Wiggins said. “We just have to match it, bring our own physicality.”
No stopping Morant: Golden State knows that there’s no strategy more effective than another when it comes to slowing down Morant. And with Payton out for an undetermined period of time, that’s one less option the Warriors will have at their disposal.
Just like in Game 1, the Warriors chose to sag off Morant and allow him to take relatively uncontested 3-pointers. He also relentlessly attacked the rim, and Golden State struggled to keep him off the free-throw line; he knocked down 12 of 13 attempts from the charity stripe. Playing without Payton, Golden State’s other defenders had no answer when isolated with Morant.
Like Payton and Green, Morant didn’t leave Tuesday night unscathed. At the end of the third quarter, Morant also had to go to the locker room after getting hit in the left eye. Morant returned to have an effective fourth quarter, scoring 18 points, finishing the game with a playoff-careerhigh 47 points (going 5-for-12 from 3-point range), eight rebounds, eight assists and three steals.
The comeback attempt: The Warriors trailed by as many as 11 points in the third quarter, but they rallied to tie it 77-77 entering the fourth quarter thanks to eight points from Wiggins and six more from Jordan Poole. Golden State took its first lead of the night with11:28 left to play.
Kerr went his three-guard lineup of Curry, Thompson, Poole, Wiggins and Green with 3:59 left and the Warriors leading 95-93. However, Memphis outscored Golden State 13-6 down the stretch.
“We did a really good job until the fourth quarter, where we just had some boneheaded turnovers,” including his own, Curry said. “When I got back in, two turnovers leads to two 3s, gives them life . ... And then we have to look at our shot selection in terms of making them really guard us, especially if we don’t have the 3-ball going.”
One of the biggest plays late was a loose-ball foul on Green, which made it a 102-99 game with 49.8 seconds left after Morant knocked down two free-throw tries. Then Morant made a floater with under 30 seconds left to just about put the game on ice. Thompson was called for traveling on the Warriors’ next possession, forcing them to play the foul game with 17.3 seconds left.
What hurt Golden State the most in Game 2 were turnovers and fouling. The Warriors coughed up 18 giveaways and shot 7-for-38 from 3-point range. Curry finished with a team-high 27 points, but he committed five turnovers.
“The loss is self-motivation because we let one get away in terms of some self-inflicted wounds with turnovers, shot selection,” Curry said. “It’s going to be a long three days living with that feeling.”