Durant loss taking a toll on Warriors

The Warriors felt the pressure every day last season. It was in every shot they took, each play rehearsed and every question asked.

Chasing the regular season wins record could not be escaped.

It is why this season brought a reprieve. At least until a tumultuous week that included two losses and an MCL sprain for Kevin Durant, likely sidelining him for the rest of the regular season.

“I don’t know if it’s been easier, it’s just been different,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said Saturday, ahead of Sunday’s game against the Knicks. “It was such a focus last year with the record, but there’s a focus on this team no matter what.”

Especially so after the Warriors suffered consecutive road losses to the Wizards and Bulls, snapping an NBA record 146 regular-season games without back-toback defeats. That reprieve from pressure? Well, it is beginning to return in a different form.

The back-to-back losses highlighted a team struggling to deal with the absence of Durant. Without his ability to stretch the floor and draw in defenders on drives to the paint, the offense is out of whack.

Durant’s absence has allowed opposing teams to focus their energy on crowding Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to devastating effect. They shot 29-of-91 from the field over the past two games only begins to tell the story of the Warriors’ new offensive reality.

“We’ve got plenty of openings and created decent shots, just haven’t gone in the last two games,” Curry said.

“We’re taking some quick ones that we could probably move the ball a little bit more,” Kerr added.

It needs to get better and fast if the Warriors want to keep hold of the Western Conference’s No. 1-overall seed.

The Spurs are lurking, just behind the Warriors, 2 ¹/2 games back entering Saturday night, with a healthy team and a star in Kawhi Leonard playing the best basketball of his career. It is why Kerr used his team’s practice to make sure the Warriors are ready for the stretch run, too.

“We went over our concepts with a good defensive segment,” Kerr said. “We did some 5-on-0 and worked on our offensive sets.”

They needed the reboot to refocus after a rough week.

The Warriors scored a season-low 87 points against the Bulls on Thursday and have averaged 104.6 points over their past three games, 13 points off their season average.

“We want home court advantage throughout the playoffs,” Curry said. “That was a goal of ours from the beginning. All of our focus needs to be on that.”

The final 20 games will tell how focused the Warriors are.