Three things that went wrong in the Warriors' Game 4 defeat
DALLAS >> The Warriors are at the NBA Finals doorstep, one win away from their sixth appearance in eight years. They had to get a clunker loss out of the way first, though.
Golden State lost 119-109 to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 4 on Tuesday night at American Airlines Center. They were down by 29 heading into the fourth quarter, but the mop-up crew managed to close to the deficit to eight points late in the fourth quarter. Coach Steve Kerr put the starters back in, to no avail.
The score wasn't as ugly as the game. But as Warriors players have attested throughout these playoffs, closeout games are the hardest to win.
Still up 3-1 in the Western Conference finals, the Warriors have an opportunity to clinch the series at Chase Center tonight. But let's take a look at some of the lessons we learned from the Game 4 loss.
They gave up a lot of 3-pointers
Thunderstorms blustering outside caused a leak in the ceiling that puddled around the American Airlines Center court, forcing a 16-minute delay after halftime. It was raining in Dallas, and Dallas was raining 3s.
The Mavericks hit 20 3-pointers on 43 attempts. Reggie Bullock, who didn't score any points in Game3, found his rhythm with six 3-pointers on 10 attempts. Dorian Finney-Smith drained four 3-pointers, and Luka Doncic hit 3. It was a far cry from the 13-for-45 shooting night Dallas had in Game 3.
The Mavericks tend to live and die by the 3, and they've mostly died by it. Their 19-point lead in Game 2, for example, came with 15 first-half 3-pointers, but the Warriors overtook that lead when the Mavericks couldn't replicate their first-half success.
“If they can hit 30 3-pointers, they deserve to win,” coach Steve Kerr said after that Warriors win.
Shooting like that, Dallas deserved Tuesday's win. But its success from 3 on Tuesday wasn't just luck, it began with lackluster defense. Golden State has had issues all season leaving players wide open in the corners. And Mavericks coach Jason Kidd made adjustments.
“The biggest compliment we've gotten is they got to play zone because they can't play us one on one, right?” Kidd said after the game. “This is a championship DNA team. They're giving you a compliment that they can't guard you. It's pretty cool.”
Dallas overloaded Golden State's zone defense on one side, forcing it to rotate its defense and leave one of the Mavericks' shooters open. In the second half, they had Doncic off ball, forcing the defense to make reads.
“Playoffs are fun,” Steph Curry said. “It's a game of adjustments, and you've got to figure out. If you can't do it on the fly, and you have a game like you have tonight. These next 48 hours, get prepared and come out with another level of focus on what they did to win the game like they did tonight.”
They didn't shoot enough from 3
Curry attempted five 3-pointers and made two of them, as did Jordan Poole. Klay Thompson attempted six 3-pointers and made two of them. Collectively, the team went 10 for 28 from 3 in the game — more notably, they made only 3 3-pointers on 16 attempts in the first half, falling way behind the Mavericks' 11 on 23 attempts.
The bench unit, thrown into the fourth quarter of a supposed blowout, hit 3 three-pointers alone. Moses Moody hit a pair of 3-pointers and Jonathan Kuminga hit one that helped cut the Warriors' deficit to eight points. But a heroic performance from 19-year-old rookies Nemanja Bjelica and Damion Lee wasn't enough to cover up the ugly offensive night.
“I thought overall (Tuesday), the ball did not move well enough,” Kerr said. “Way too much dribbling, and I thought that group came out and did a better job moving the ball and we got some easy buckets.”
The energy was off
The Warriors went into Game 4 with heavy hearts. The shooting at Robb Elementary in nearby Uvalde, Texas, prompted Kerr's emotional speech of pre-game pleading, on the verge of tears, lawmakers to take action on gun control. Emotions were high.
“Especially before the game, before it started,” Kerr said. “I think we all felt the anger, the frustration. I know I expressed it to you guys. So I was pretty emotional, and I tried to just, you know, get myself composed and coach the team.”
Once on the court, players know how to compartmentalize broken hearts from their game mindset. But the Warriors' energy was off and their play not at all crisp in the loss.
Andrew Wiggins didn't have that same edge he's been playing with throughout the playoffs. Jordan Poole's foul count rung up quickly as he struggled to gain his footing defensively. Poor defensive play led to a lack of offensive burst.
“We weren't alert tonight defensively. We weren't sharp,” Kerr said. “And I thought we let them kind of get into a groove. And once a team like that gets into a 3-point groove, it's tough to get them out of it.”