Golden State Warriors: All Good Streaks Must Come To An End
All good things must come to an end. Unfortunately for the Golden State Warriors, their 16-game win streak was no different.
Last night on the road, the Dubs fell to the Memphis Grizzlies — the only other team that had any sort of claim to the title of “best in the league” — in a surprisingly close 105-98 contest. With Andrew Bogut and David Lee still sidelined, it makes sense Golden State’s streak came to an end against a team with such a dominant frontcourt.
Take it from this writer-turned-prophet, the writing was on the wall before the game began. (It’s not often I get to toot my own horn, so…TOOT.)
The Warriors surprisingly held their ground, matching Memphis’ 50 points in the paint with 50 points of their own. But Zach Randolph (17 points, 10 rebounds) clearly overpowered Draymond Green (four points, 2-for-11 shooting) and when it mattered most, the Grizz were able to score inside against that shorthanded frontcourt.
If it weren’t for Marreese Speights‘ 18 points off the bench against his former team, the final score probably would’ve been uglier. Credit the Warriors for fighting back and making it close, but what does this loss and the end of the streak mean for the Dubs?
On the one hand, it’s easy to write this one off for a number of reasons. First of all, take a look at the Warriors’ schedule in the last week. They’ve bested the Houston Rockets and the Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans on the road. Something had to give eventually.
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Second, this team is currently playing without its defensive anchor in Bogut. The Dubs are also still waiting on Lee to play his eighth minute of the season. Draymond Green will remain the starting power forward when Lee returns, but his presence off the bench would’ve been a big help in a game like last night’s.
Third, let’s all remember that on most nights, Stephen Curry isn’t going to shoot 1-for-10 from three-point range. Curry shoots an absurd 43.7 percent from downtown for his career, so even though we shouldn’t take anything away from Memphis’ stout defense, let’s also recognize that shooters have off nights. Curry just picked a pretty bad one to be off.
We could keep going by mentioning Vince Carter‘s flashback to 2004, or how that costly second quarter run with Curry on the bench gave the Grizz an advantage that proved to be insurmountable. After all, in the nine minutes Curry sat, the Warriors were an appalling -23.
But in truth, the Dubs should be allowed one road loss against the second-best team in the league simply by virtue of the fact that they just won 16 freaking games in a row. If the doubters and realists who said championships aren’t won in December are correct, they should also note that titles aren’t lost after one head-to-head loss in December either.
That being said, we can’t completely write off this streak-busting defeat either. Losing the streak is obviously disappointing, but with the Grizzlies last night and the Oklahoma City Thunder on the slate for Thursday, it was highly unlikely to last through the weekend anyway.
More importantly though, is measuring what this failed test means for the shorthanded Dubs moving forward.
To be clear, the Warriors weren’t “exposed” or anything like that. Nobody should’ve been betting against Z-Bo and Gasol going up against Green and Festus Ezeli. The Dubs are a completely different team with a healthy Andrew Bogut…but isn’t that the issue here?
Dating back to the 2007-08 season, Bogut hasn’t reached the 70-game threshold in a single season. In the three seasons leading up to this year, the injury-prone Aussie played in a grand total of 111 games. Even last season, when Bogut stayed mostly healthy and played 67 games, he wound up missing the entire postseason because of a cracked rib.
In fact, in nine NBA seasons, Bogut has only been healthy for a grand total of three playoff rounds and 17 games — two rounds and 12 games coming with the Dubs. In other words, trusting in the health of Andrew Bogut come playoff time is like trusting your hosts to be chill at a wedding in Game of Thrones.
As for Lee, he’s been a little more durable during the regular season…but the story’s been similar come playoff time. In 2012-13, Lee missed half of the Dubs’ 12 playoff games because of a tear in his right hip flexor. His absence helped the Dubs beat the Denver Nuggets in the first round with small-ball lineups, but keeping another injury-prone big healthy for the postseason is yet another priority for Steve Kerr this year.
The point is, it’s easy to chalk up last night’s loss to Bogut and Lee not being healthy.
But since that very well could be the same situation the Golden State Warriors have to deal with come playoff time, we also might have seen how much this league-leading team has to improve in order to make good on those title aspirations.