Stephen Curry issued a bold challenge to the Golden State Warriors after their playoff aspirations were dashed on Wednesday night with a 114-111 home loss to the San Antonio Spurs.
“A good team will bounce back from it and takes care of business these next two [games] and goes from there,” Curry told the crowd. “We have to prove we’re a good team.”
The Warriors have been a terrific club since they made a big trade for Jimmy Butler at the deadline. They advanced from 11th to fourth place in the loaded Western Conference. However, they have sputtered in two of their last three games, dropping to seventh place with two games remaining in the regular season.
Curry and Butler contributed 30 and 28 points, respectively, against the Spurs. But they received little assistance from their supporting cast.
“We know where we’re at,” Curry added. “We understand how vital every game is. It’s been crucial for the past two weeks. We’ve done a lot to give ourselves a good opportunity of climbing higher than we were before the trade deadline. The last two home games have been disappointing for a variety of reasons. Houston and tonight, we feel like we can win. [We] should’ve won.”
‘We messed around’
The Warriors blew a 12-point lead early in the fourth quarter against the lottery-bound Spurs.
Harrison Barnes, a crucial player of their 2015 championship team who was cut following his troubles in 2016 to make way for Kevin Durant, returned to haunt them.
Barnes scored the game-winning shot over Butler’s outstretched arms at the buzzer.
The crazy conclusion was caused by three terrible mistakes by Curry and Draymond Green, the franchise’s surviving veterans from the previous four championship runs, in the final 2:11 of the game.
“You give a team life and give them the ability to make a run, finish a fourth quarter like they did then it’s make or miss at the end of the game whether it’s going to overtime or not and you never want to put yourself in that position,” Curry told the media.
“We did and got bit by it.”
“We messed around with the game and lost,” Green explained. “That’s how it goes.”
Where Will the Warriors Go from Here?
Curry identified two significant segments in which they lost the game: the beginning of the second and fourth quarters.
“We just got lax defensively and allowed a lot of straight line drives to the basket,” Curry explained. “We were quite soft on the ball. They were simply driving in the paint, getting to the hoop, grabbing offensive rebounds, or finding open threes, and those two stretches energized them. It made them believe that [this game] was worth fighting.”
The Warriors were minus-16 in non-Curry minutes.
A large portion of time was spent on the key stretches during which Curry said they lost the game.
The Spurs went on an 18-3 run to start the second quarter. Then they went on a 15-4 run in the fourth quarter, cutting the Warriors’ 12-point lead to 92-91 with 8:28 remaining.
“They’re also an NBA squad. “They’re going to take advantage of it, and they did,” Curry said of the Spurs, who lost top players Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox to season-ending injuries in February and March.
Now, the Warriors may have to compete in the play-in competition to secure a playoff position.
They must win their final two games — against the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday and the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday — and pray that the Denver Nuggets, Clippers, and Memphis Grizzlies do not reach 49 victories.
“We just made it a little harder on ourselves,” Curry told the crowd. “We’ve got to win both. Let’s see what happens.
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