San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Curry’s return is just a step off
He has 27 points in 1st game back after 3 weeks but isn’t sharp
DETROIT — As much as any player in the NBA, Warriors point guard Stephen Curry requires finding his flow to dominate.
So in his first game in more than three weeks Saturday night, it’s no surprise that Curry was out of sync, failing to recapture his usual brilliance as Golden State lost 111-102 to the Pistons at Little Caesars Arena.
Though he scored 27 points, Curry was uncharacteristically disjointed as he tallied more than twice as many turnovers (seven) as assists (three). His plus-minus of minus-8 ranked worst among the Warriors’ starters. After entering the night shooting 49.2 percent from beyond the arc, Curry missed six of his nine three-point tries.
“I’ve had great games after missing significant time before,” Curry said. “Tonight was not like that. It was just more being really antsy whenever I got the ball in my hands, feeling like I had to make something happen. I didn’t really force much. It was just the timing was off.”
It was a dose of reality for those who thought Curry’s return from a strained left groin would cure all of Golden State’s ills.
In the first half, Curry appeared a moment slow finding
open man or deciding whether to shoot. After intermission, Curry started to find somewhat of a rhythm, hitting two shots in the fourth quarter — a runner in the lane and a 22-foot pullup jumper — and looking like the player who had gained early MVP buzz before sustaining a groin injury Nov. 8 against Milwaukee.
Head coach Steve Kerr is hardly worried that Curry didn’t immediately return to his dazzling ways. With more than four months until the playoffs, he feels no lingering groin pain. The expectation was that it would take Curry at least a game or two to get his timing back.
What concerns Kerr is how uneven the rest of his team looks offensively. Far too often, several Golden State players clog the paint instead of spread the floor.
Early foul trouble threw the Warriors out of sync Saturday. They finished 6-for-26 from three-point range, gave up 14 offensive rebounds and attempted 13 fewer shots than the Pistons. After winning three straight, Golden State has opened its five-game trip 0-2.
“I’ve got to do a better job, honestly,” Kerr said. “Tonight was probably a game that I could mark down as one of my worst performances as a coach. Every time I looked up, we had three guys in the paint.”
The Warriors’ young center rotation is still enduring growing pains.
In 14 minutes, Jordan Bell was minus-16. Kevon Looney comthe mitted five fouls. Before leaving the game for good late in the third quarter with a left shoulder injury, Damian Jones was bullied on the boards by Detroit’s Andre Drummond, who had eight offensive rebounds. Jones received an MRI exam postgame, and his status for Monday’s game in Atlanta is in flux.
Asked about his big men’s struggles, Kerr shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and said, “How many times have I been asked this question? We have these three young guys who all play center. I don’t know how many times I have to answer. They all give us something different. They’re all young. They’re all growing. They’re all developing. Haven’t we asked that question enough?”
It was a rare moment of postgame frustration from Kerr. Little more than a quarter through the season, his Warriors are lagging behind expectations. They sit fourth in the Western Conference at 15-9 and lack their typical cohesion.
The good news is that the face of the franchise is back.
“It’s a matter of time before (Curry) gets back into the flow of the NBA game,” Warriors forward Kevin Durant said. “Even MVPs like that, it might take more than just a game. … I’m expecting the next game for us to come out and play better.”