Demoralize. Humiliating. Embarrassing.
With these words, the Warriors described their 130-77 loss to the Toronto Raptors Friday night.
After the game, none other than coach Steve Kerr spoke to the team. Neither Draymond Green nor Steph Curry, both hurt, had inspiring or even harrowing things to say. Klay Thompson spoke to a few teammates in the hallway, but there wasn’t much conversation.
Everyone already knew how bad it was.
“Not much needed to be said,” said Kevon Looney in a video conference call after the game. “Everyone who was part of this game and everyone was playing knew it. Everyone was embarrassed. Everyone will look at themselves in the mirror after a game like this and come back to the drawing board … Nothing had to be said that we didn’t do, I know not yet. “
The absence of Curry (tailbone contusion) and Green (left finger sprain) certainly had an impact on the warriors’ performance against the Raptors. Golden State missed the couple’s experience and game.
But what plagued the warriors went far beyond missing them.
“The most disappointing thing tonight was the basic basics,” said Kerr.
That’s what Kerr covered in his post-game speech. He talked about exertion, highlighting the warriors’ failure to share the ball and defense.
The warriors left good marksmen open to defend poorer ones. They tried to box. They trickled too much. They couldn’t complete passports. They failed in the transition.
“One of the basic rules in basketball is that you don’t leave the ball behind,” said Kerr. “It’s like being a free security in football. You never let your passport come over your head. We did that twice last night and two or three times tonight. And as I told the team, these are elementary school games. There are no excuses there for ever leaving anyone behind, and we’ve done it multiple times in a row.
“The other thing that was disappointing was the lack of ball movement. Our team is built to split the ball. When you move the ball in this game, the magic happens. Then you build an energy of karma. The shots me tend to go in when you move and split the ball. And I only saw possession after ball tonight, that was a pass and a shot. We have to play for each other and we didn’t do that tonight. “
So where do the warriors go from here? Kerr believes his team will be prepared for a run for the last 23 games of the season. Curry agrees.
But the Warriors (23-26) currently occupy 10th place in the Western Conference and 7.0 games from sixth, the starting point that would allow them to skip the warm-up games. Golden State is also just two games away from 12th place, dropping three games under .500 for the first time this season.
However, what discourages the warriors most is that they are regressing rather than advancing. All of the things that Kerr and his players listed as reasons why they were blown out by the Raptors have been issues all year round.
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Kerr has vowed to simplify his game system and move away from the Warriors’ now familiar, free-flowing offensive to higher screens and pick-and-rolls to include the younger players like James Wiseman more. That seems to work one game and fail the next, and Friday was one of Wiseman’s worst performances yet.
So the first step in going for a run would be to correct the simple fundamental and mental mistakes. Next, the warriors need to get well so they can get a feel for what they are actually working with. From there, Golden State has to find a way to play consistently.
Again, the Warriors had to do these three things from the start of the season.
The warriors are running out of time to make their move. And if anything, their loss to the Raptors only made it clear how far the Warriors must go, especially if Curry misses out on more games.
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