ORLANDO, Fla. Tuesday’s game against the miserable Magic, which has won just 19 games, seems like an easy way to gather momentum for the Warriors matchup against the Miami Heat, the top seed of the Eastern Conference.
But nothing is easy for this team without Stephen Curry.
“Is there any concern? Yes, we only lost two games in a row without Steph,” Kerr said after the Warriors’ 94-90 loss. “So the schedule is getting tougher, so yeah, there’s a little bit of worry. We need to do better.”
The Warriors are 2-6 this season and 18-59 in the last three years in games without Curry.
“We play soft, we play stupid, we just do not play good basketball, we get punctured,” said Draymond Green. “So it’s hard to win a game and get punched, and that’s the way we are now … We lose a lot of fourth quarters and that’s execution but to execute it requires a certain level of physics and we are not hitting that. And no respect for the Orlando Magic, which is one of the worst teams in the league.
Jordan Poole was the Warriors’ best player since Curry went down with a foot injury last week, but his second-half heroism was not enough to pull off the win.
After scoring just five points in the first half, Poole exploded in the second. He finished with 26 points and 6 assists.
Poole has now scored 20 or more points in 10 consecutive games. The last Warriors player who did not name Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson or Kevin Durant to achieve that feat was David Lee in 2012.
The Warriors repeated some of the same mistakes from Sunday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs, including a slow opening quarter and untimely turnover.
The Warriors fell into a 13-point deficit in the first quarter. Golden State was also plagued by cold shooting, going 15-of-41 (35%) from the field and 2-of-14 (14.3%) from the perimeter.
“We had a few looks that we missed, but it did not feel like a rhythm game for us offensively. I thought we were a bit out of whack,” Kerr said.
The Dubs were able to respond in the second half with more goals and better defense.
Led by Poole and Thompson, the Dubs outscored Magic 36-19 in the third quarter.
The Warriors led by as many as 14 points in the fourth before their momentum was flat.
Poole’s driving layout at the last minute was blocked by Mo Bamba and by Wendell Carter Jr.
Kerr disputed the foul but the call remained after he was checked.
Wagner, a career 85.4% shooter from the charity strip, went 3-for-3. He then struck a dunk in the final seconds of the game to drive away the dagger.
All said and done, Thompson had 15 points and rookie Jonathan Kuminga added 14. Otter Porter Jr. also had an impressive performance. Coming off the bench, he hit his fourth double with the Warriors, scoring 14 points and pulling down 15 rebounds. This is only the second time in Porter’s nine season career that he has recorded two consecutive double-innings.
“We have to look at our lineup,” Kerr said. “We have to tackle everything. Without Steph everything changes. It’s like a domino effect. So every lineup changes now, you saw me looking for lineups in the game tonight … just a really disappointing fourth quarter. For just 16 To score points, we did not perform well in the 4th. Give them credit. They were hyped, they had a long difficult year and they came after us in the 4th.
Kerr’s message to the team in the wardrobe after the embarrassing loss was precise and clear.
“We have to perform better and we have to be smarter,” he said.
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