golden state warriors vs washington wizards (Photo: LetsGoWarriors.com Instagram account)
ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — The Golden State Warriors currently have a 27-19 record. In their last two games, they have played one team with a 33-13 record and another team with a 22-22 record. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the Warriors would win more easily against the team with the worse record. However, this was not the case.
In the first game of the two, the Warriors beat the Portland Trail Blazers, who currently have the third best record in the Western Conference, 103-88.
The Warriors won by a fairly significant margin against a quality team. They forced the Blazers, the NBA’s highest-scoring offense, to a season-low in points, and they forced them to shoot a season-low 33.7 percent. They held a probable Western Conference all-star in LaMarcus Aldridge to just 10 points.
In the second game of their two most recent games, the Warriors lost to the Washington Wizards, 88-85. The Warriors played solid defense for all four quarters, holding the Wizards to 37.8 percent shooting. However, their offense disappeared in this game, and they only shot 37.5 percent from the field.
The Warriors have gotten into a bad habit of playing up or playing down to their competition. On one side, it’s great to see them playing good, competitive basketball against some of the best teams in the NBA.
However, it’s even harder to watch when they lose to a team that they should hypothetically beat fairly easily.
Mark Jackson expressed his frustration at this trend.
“Right now, we’re a team that if a championship-caliber team comes in here or an elite team comes in here, we play at that level, and if a bad team or an average team comes in, then we play at that level. We are not good enough to allow who comes in here to determine how hard we play,” Jackson said.
“The locked-in teams that are truly committed, they do it, and right now we’re not doing it,” Jackson added, “Let’s stop reading the press clippings and find a way to go out there and get it done.”
“It”, meaning playing elite-level basketball.
The Warriors are a very talented team, but it’s almost as if they assume they’re going to win easily when they either play an opponent with a worse record or if they play at home. As Coach Jackson always says, the Warriors are a “no-excuse basketball team”, and the fact that they play up or down to their competition is unacceptable.
Andrew Bogut spoke about this team’s identity and their expectations.
“You can’t go from one playoff appearance in how many years to all of the sudden trying to win a championship the next year. It’s a process, and we can’t just click our fingers and expect to go win a ring right now, opposite of what people are telling us,” Bogut said, echoing Jackson’s earlier comment about ignoring the press clippings’ praise of the potential of the team.
Stephen Curry has also shown frustration and disappointment with the team’s recent play and inconsistency.
“It seems like every night, it’s something different,” said Curry, comparing this loss to the one against the Minnesota Timberwolves in which the team gave up 121 points, “We’re not crisp or efficient on the offensive end. We just haven’t been able to put together a complete game. We’re a competitive bunch that wants to win, so this is frustrating.”
During this homestand, the Warriors have an opportunity to gain some ground in the Western Conference standings, and they’re not taking advantage of it. This is a hard-working, driven team though, so they have to find a way to break these bad habits and prove what kind of team they can be.
As Andre Iguodala said, “We’ve got to right the ship but not jump off the ship.”
[NOTE: Poor Man’s Commish contributed to this report.]Follow @MaggiePilloton
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