Golden State survives lull, extends streak to 6
With the Warriors well on their way to a 114-101 win Tuesday night over the Nets, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant sauntered to the bench, grabbed their warm-up hoodies and glanced at the big screen above as the Oracle Arena crowd serenaded them with applause.
That those two were free to watch teammates finish Golden State’s sixth straight victory belied familiar issues. After building a 21-point first quarter lead over one of the NBA’s worst teams, the Warriors again succumbed to bad habits, allowing Brooklyn to seize a 53-48 lead by halftime.
Golden State wore down the Nets in the fourth quarter to notch its fifth season in a row with at least 50 wins. However, the Warriors were left wrestling with a troubling question: When will they finally put together a complete performance against an inferior opponent?
The inattention Golden State showed in that second quarter likely would have doomed it against a playoff-caliber team. With little more than a month left until the postseason, the Warriors are still seeking a solution to the boredom that
has dogged them all year.
“It’s natural to relax when you’re up 20 points, so I don’t think we put our foot on the gas in that moment,” Klay Thompson said. “We got the win, though, so I’m happy.”
Eight hours before tip-off Tuesday, Thompson reiterated his desire to run the table in the regular season. It was a lofty goal, sure, but not entirely out of the question.
Golden State is considerably more talented than the group that opened the 2015-16 season with 24 straight victories. Fueled by an urge to catch the Western Conference-leading Rockets and clinch the No. 1 seed, the Warriors already had rattled off five consecutive wins since the All-Star break.
It only seemed to help that Golden State was entering perhaps its softest stretch. Over the final five weeks of the season, the Warriors are due to play Phoenix and Sacramento — two of the West’s four worst teams — a combined five times. Kicking it off was a home date against a Brooklyn club that had won just once since the start of February and arrived at Oracle Arena tied for the worst record in the Eastern Conference.
The problem is that, more than any opponent, Golden State’s biggest obstacle this season has been complacency. Seldom is a first-half lead safe for a group battling the mental fatigue that comes with chasing a fourth NBA Finals in a row.
Seemingly well-rested after three days off, the Warriors’ collective powers — the switchheavy defense, the cast of AllStars, the deep bench, the rapid tempo, the parade of passes — took their toll early. Late in the first quarter, after Curry stole the ball from D’Angelo Russell and drained a 28-footer, Golden State led, 35-14.
It was yet more proof that the Warriors are as lethal as any team in recent history when at full-tilt. However, the knowledge of its supreme abilities makes Golden State uniquely prone to collapses.
In the second quarter, Golden State went from bully to bullied. Late in Brooklyn’s 25-4 run, when Dante Cunningham hit a layup to knot the game at 39-39, a smattering of boos rained down from the Oracle Arena rafters. Little more than a minute later, Draymond Green caught a long outlet pass from Curry, launched for the dunk and was blocked at the rim by Joe Harris.
In the waning seconds of the first half, Curry air-balled a three-pointer and, seemingly confused by what he had just seen, shared a puzzled glance with head coach Steve Kerr. The Warriors shot 6-for-18 in the second quarter as they were outscored 34-13 to dig a five-point hole by intermission.
“We took our foot off the gas pedal and gave them a little bit of life,” said Curry, who poured in 34 points on 12-for-20 shooting. “Our job is to not let our body language dictate our play on the court. We got better at it in the second half.”
Unlike numerous times this season, when Golden State wiped away first-half miscues with a third-quarter blitz, it let the Nets hang around until the early stages of the fourth quarter. It was only then that the Warriors tightened up defensively and uncorked a gamechanging rally to build a morethan-sufficient cushion.
Fans began to file toward the exits after Andre Iguodala threw down dunks on back-toback possessions to put Golden State up 101-85 with 6:35 left. Now, with a back-to-back set looming against San Antonio and Portland, the Warriors are in the same spot they’ve been for five months: trying to get excited for regular-season games when all their goals await in the playoffs. Injury update: Warriors forward Jordan Bell didn’t return after leaving the game late in the third quarter with a sprained right ankle. X-rays were negative and his status for Thursday’s game against San Antonio was not immediately known.