Yikes. There are plenty of ways to tear Wednesday night’s performance to shreds. If nothing else, the Warriors should be commended for experimenting with all varieties of ineptitude.
It started bad and ended so much worse. Golden State took the drubbing of drubbings in a to a Ja Morant-less Grizzlies team, losing 134-95.
Turnovers, sloppiness, and other bad things
Either the Warriors were disinterested or they were just terrible. The latter is likelier than the former given the stakes.
But the intensity required to secure a closeout win was nowhere to be seen. That Game 3 Warriors team that shot over 60 percent and put up 142 points has disappeared.
This team has been stuck in a rut for the past eight quarters. The normal flow of the offense, with back screens, quick cuts and players showing from the ball is not on display.
All too often there are visible expressions of frustration by Stephen Curry or Draymond Green when cuts aren’t made.
The offense frequently stalls and as it’s gone from that free-flowing to brutally dry, there’s a level of carelessness and desperation that’s appeared.
The Warriors were completely reckless in the first half, which is when this game ended. They turned the ball over 14 times, leading to 25 Memphis points.
They also were badly out-rebounded, as Steven Adams, Brandon Clarke and Jaren Jackson Jr. gave the undersized Warriors serious trouble inside.
Memphis shot lights out, the Warriors capitulated, and went from horrible to disastrous.
Draymond, Poole all out of sorts
The game ended about halfway through the second quarter. Golden State had cut the deficit to 11 points off a Jordan Poole three.
Then Green quite literally threw the game away, spurring an 85-second window in which the Warriors turned the ball over four times. Green turned it over 5 times in 22 minutes.
Memphis immediately turned that 11-point lead into a 20-point lead and Golden State fell apart.
It’s concerning to see the way Green has played in this series. He has not been the offensive engine or facilitator he usually is. He’s been sloppy and reckless, often creating issues in the half court by not looking to score and slowing the pace, while simultaneously playing too fast on the break.
Poole, meanwhile, has looked lost. He continues to drive into the paint, get stuck, turn around, and then throw a panic pass out of the post. He finished with 3 points, 3 assists, 3 fouls and 4 turnovers in 20 minutes.
Both players’ issues represent where Golden State has been at for the last two games. They are disjointed, reckless and struggling to deal with Memphis’ size.
Even Klay Thompson, who shot well and was a positive part of the offense, got burned time and time again defensive with back cuts, leading the team with an astonishing -45 net rating.
It’s hard to know what the lack of Steve Kerr on the sidelines is doing, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be a boon. The loss of Gary Payton II has clearly been a massive loss. He was their sparkplug on both ends and took a serious defensive weight off the Golden State stars.
What is clear is that the Warriors need to flip a switch and rediscover that Game 3 form when the series returns to San Francisco on Friday.
Now, all that said, their stars didn’t seem too bothered to be down by, er, 46 points in the fourth quarter. Both Green and Curry seemed to revel in the Grizzlies’ unofficial anthem, “Whoop That Trick,” which Curry joked about pregame.
If you’re a body language expert, maybe you can extrapolate a more specific meaning from this. But maybe those veterans were thinking, “Hey, we got to rest for half a game before going home, it could be worse.”
Otto Porter Jr.’s injury
Feel free to fill in the blank here with something about adding insult to injury. This performance doesn’t deserve being tongue-in-cheek.
What is clear is that the Warriors can’t really go small against this Memphis team.
But they might not have much of an option. Otto Porter Jr., who has played a substantial role in this series, offering size, a bit of spacing, and a solid defensive presence on the interior, left after the first half and did not return with right foot soreness.
If the Warriors don’t have Porter Jr., their front court gets even thinner and it likely means they’ll have to ask for additional minutes out of Jonathan Kuminga or Juan Toscano-Anderson, who has been a non-factor in the playoffs.
That’s a harrowing proposition. The TNT broadcast also confirmed that Andre Iguodala will miss at least Game 6 with a persistent neck injury.
So, the series will head back to San Francisco after the worst blowout yet. Will the Warriors snap out of their lowly fugue? Check in next time to find out.
Bonus: Go watch the movie Heat
If you’re feeling down, “Heat” will pick you up. This is not a paid endorsement, just an acknowledgment that if you made it this far into this story, or watched even two quarters of Wednesday night’s game, you need something to cleanse the palate.
Michael Mann’s 1995 crime thriller has got romance, comedy, the best movie cop drama and heists that avoid being corny. It gives you the absolute best of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
Mann lets both of them go pure iso at times, with Pacino providing some of the all-time, most quotable and downright hilarious moments in cinema history. De Niro provides the grizzled antihero that you hate that you love. The moments when the two face off, even from a distance, are absolute gold. Lightning in a bottle.
But Mann also adds a supporting cast that brings out the best in everyone. Val Kilmer is an outstanding secondary character with his own compelling subplot, while Diane Venora and a young Natalie Portman give depths to Pacino’s work-obsessed, brilliant detective character.
Even Jon Voight gets in there in a role that fits, like all the rest do, like a glove. Oh, and there’s a Hank Azaria scene that might be the funniest movie moment of all time.
It’s the absolute best of the 90s with the right kind of action, dialogue, buildup and suspense that will help wash out the taste of an all-time Warriors playoff loss.