Warriors enter 2025 in desperate need of answers amid recent skid originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – Instead of champagne bottles, shot glasses and party hats, when the ball drops and the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, the Warriors will have to be as creative as their offense would ever sound in early 2025.
Can Golden State scour the yard for a four-leaf clover? Will a rabbit’s foot appear out of nowhere? Would burning box scores from the Warriors’ most miserable losses bring them luck?
Whatever route the Warriors have to take, something has to change after another horrific loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Warriors led by one point after the first quarter Monday night, a mirage of what awaited their 113-95 loss Monday at Chase Center. Neither team could buy a bucket early in the second quarter. Andrew Wiggins, four and a half minutes into the quarter, ended the scoreless drought with a floater. But the Warriors only scored nine points the rest of the quarter.
It’s not like the Cavs were great in those twelve minutes and only scored twenty points themselves. However, 11 points for a quarter in an NBA game for a team with Steph Curry feels comical. Those 11 points were a season-low for the Warriors in any quarter, and while their offense improved throughout the game, the home team did not.
They took 24 shots in the second quarter and made four. None of their eight three-point attempts filtered through the net. How the second half started, and not how the first half ended, was the turning point.
A three-point play from Trayce Jackson-Davis And-1 cut the Warriors’ deficit to five points within the first minute of the third quarter. And then the attack began. On three consecutive Cavs offensive possessions, Donovan Mitchell scored a three-pointer as the Warriors couldn’t make a shot. Evan Mobley’s three officially made it 12-0 for Cleveland in the first two and a half minutes of the second half, putting Golden State in a 17-point hole that they never came close to getting out of come.
“The most important part of the game was Mitchell’s three threes to start the third,” Steve Kerr said. “I think we scored first and then they scored 12 in a row and broke it open.”
With three and a half minutes left in the third quarter, the Warriors trailed by 26 points en route to an 18-point loss. The outburst wiped away the good feelings from the Warriors’ impressive, gritty win against the Devin Booker-less Phoenix Suns two nights prior, leaving them at 16-16 entering the new year.
Steph Curry went all-out online and summed up what the Warriors are after such an encouraging start to the season.
“As the kids say, we’re very much halfway there right now,” Curry said. “We are just very average.”
The Warriors opened eyes and brought fear back into the league with their blistering 12-3 start. New additions seemed to be perfect role players. Curry didn’t have to be a superhero to make the Warriors at least look like a team that can compete. Draymond Green played like a defensive player of the year.
Winning cures all, but it can also mask many shortcomings in small samples. The Cavs, a team that will always be a terrible matchup for the Warriors with their combination of size, length, athleticism and scoring ability, have now beaten them by 19 and 18 points, but led by 41 in their first game and 26 points. Monday evening.
There have been a handful of losses to inferior teams, and a number of games where Golden State ultimately gave it away. A 12-3 start to the season provided numerous reasons for optimism. From ages 4 to 13, everyone wonders what’s going on.
“You are what your record says you are,” Kerr said. “I think Bill Parcells said that, and I think there’s a lot of truth in that. We’ve definitely come down from that early start where we had a lot of momentum and a lot of good flow in our game.
“I know, because I’ve seen it – the way we started – I know it’s in us and I know we can get there. But right now it’s definitely a struggle.”
Right when the Warriors could make a move, they went out and acquired Dennis Schröder from the Brooklyn Nets on December 14. They’ve gone 2-5 since then and Schroder looks like a shell of the version that thrived in Brooklyn. .
Not only did the Warriors finish the portion of their 2024 season as a .500 team, they are currently ranked No. 10 in the Western Conference as the last play-in tournament team. Like Kerr, Curry doesn’t lose confidence. At the same time, the Warriors are 2.5 games away from exiting the play-in tournament and 3.5 away from being in the top four in the West.
Being satisfied with the current product cannot be the answer. Curry knows there needs to be an immediate sense of urgency from the top down.
“I think we understand that there are better days ahead,” Curry said. “You’re not in that big of a hole in the Western Conference, if you look at the standings. You play a run of five, six games, and to us that sounds like a lot, but it’s the numbers. You can make up a lot of ground quite quickly.
“It’s a tough job, but that fine line between losing hope and confidence, and understanding one good week and you’re kind of back at it, that’s where we are now.”
Middle. The perfect opportunity to change the tides and embrace what 2025 will bring, or watch the waves crash all hope into the sand as Curry’s 37th birthday draws closer.
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