LOS ANGELES — Even the most legendary teams in NBA history have run into rough patches.The 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers lost back-to-back games before ripping off a record 33 wins in a row and dropping four out of six immediately thereafter. The 1985-86 Boston Celtics endured lulls in December and February.
The 1995-96 Chicago Bulls picked up two of their 10 defeats during three days on the road in February. The 2013-14 Miami Heat lost eight games between late December and early February—half their total in a season marked by a 27-game streak.
And, of course, a championship.This year's Golden State Warriors probably aren't on that level and would have quite a ways to go if they're to get there at all. Like any and every team ever, the Warriors were bound to hit a spot of trouble, like the two-game blip that became of their three-day stay in L.A.
"No panic or nothing like that," Warriors forward Draymond Green said after Golden State's 100-86 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Christmas Day. "We’ll be fine, but we just got to get our rhythm back. That happens throughout the course of the season. You can’t expect to be in a rhythm for 82 games. It’s just not going to happenIf you were to judge this club just by its early-season successes (i.e. a franchise-record 16-game winning streak, a refreshingly fun and productive offense, a familiarly stingy defense), you wouldn't think the Warriors were a conglomerate of championship neophytes playing for a rookie coach and a brand-new staff that's only had a few months to implement its own philosophies and strategies.
"For us, this is still a new offense," Stephen Curry said in serving reminder. "We’ve been playing well and winning games, continuing to learn how we’re going to get our shots and how we’re going to play the way coach wants us to.
"And when we lose, obviously the questions become, 'What’s going on? Why are you not doing this?'"What's happened, not just this past week but datingback to mid-December, is that their offense has stagnated somewhat.
The ball hasn't been whipping its way around the horn with quite the same zing. The windows on the shots generated have been shorter—just enough to throw off the lightning-quick releases of Stephen Curry (34.9 percent on threes, 3.9 turnovers per game since Dec. 10), Klay Thompson (plus-minus of minus-2.6 during that time) and company.
"We’re out of whack right now offensively," head coach Steve Kerr said. "We’re not in the same groove we’ve been in. The ball’s not moving. So we’ve got a lot of work to do."
"The passes haven’t been as crisp," Stephen Curry added in assessment. "The movement hasn’t been as crisp as it usually has been."
Those messages came through the Warriors' play loud and clear at Staples Center on Thursday. The Clippers couldn't throw a beach ball in the ocean during the first half, and yet the Dubs failed to put much distance between themselves and their southern California rivals.
L.A., with the NBA's third-most-efficient offense, clanked 20 of their 24 attempts in the opening frame, including 16 in a row after DeAndre Jordan's initial close-range shot but was down by just a bucket. The Warriors built up an 11-point lead in the second quarter, spurred by seven of Thompson's 15 points on the night, only to see all but one point of that lead slip away by the break.
"In the second quarter and the third quarter, we kind of got a little lax and gave up the lead, and that was tough to come back from," Curry explained. "We played so much better than them we felt like the whole game. We just didn't have enough to show for it going into the half."Things certainly didn't improve for the Warriors after that. Their offense strengthened a bit in the third, only to collapse completely during a 5-of-22 shooting performance in the final frame.
This, after shooting a subpar 42.2 percent during the first three quarters of a 10-point loss to the Kobe Bryant-less Los Angeles Lakers, during which the Warriors trailed by as many as 24 points, two nights prior.
The present personnel had plenty to do with that. The Warriors were without a true center—a big body who could set jarring screens and add an inside-out touch to a perimeter-oriented offense—the entire night against the Clips.
Andrew Bogut spent his eighth straight game in street clothes on account of fluid in his right knee. Bogut's backup, Festus Ezeli, sat beside him, nursing an ankle sprain suffered against the Lakers.
Without them in tow, the task of freeing Curry and Thompson for their clean looks fell to Marreese Speights and David Lee, both quality bigs but more rollers than pickers, per se.
"Calling the same sets, obviously with Bogie out, we’re used to being able to swing and do stuff that he’s able to do," Curry added. "But we have to adjust to different players’ tendencies and strengths."
Occasional size deficits are nothing new for the Warriors. They saw Bogut sit out 15 regular-season games and each of their seven against these Clippers in the first round of the playoffs this past spring. Ezeli didn't play a single game in 2013-14 while nursing a surgically repaired knee.
Still, for these Warriors—the ones operating under Kerr rather than Mark Jackson, with Lee and Andre Iguodala leading the reserves and Shaun Livingston stepping in as Golden State's first guard off the bench—playing without Bogut's passing and screening, or Ezeli's sheer bulk, is something that doesn't come as naturally.
Any team trying to function without a key cog or two is bound to encounter some bumps in the road, especially when treading through the territory of a team that's as strong on the interior as the Clippers are.
"We’re not invincible to anything," said Curry. "We have to play the way we’re supposed to play at our highest level to win games. If you don’t, you’re susceptible to getting beat."
Beyond the obvious tactical differences, though, the Warriors have clearly lacked some measure of the toughness and tenacity that Jackson helped to instill in previous seasons and that underpinned their spectacular start. Perhaps that's had something to do with Bogut, who wasn't properly dressed to confront the Clippers' frontcourt like he did last Christmas.
Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2311372-top-seeded-warriors-still-far-from-panic-mode-after-2-game-skid-in-los-angeles
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