Warriors Summer League 2014: Heartbreak In Vegas As Golden State Falls to Lakers 89-88 (Photo: Ryan Brown | LetsGoWarriors.com)
Once again, the Golden State Warriors put their undefeated summer league streak on the line. This time, the rival Los Angeles Lakers stood in their way of a record 17 straight summer league victories. Unfortunately, the streak came to an end as the Warriors fell to the Lakers 89-88 in dramatic fashion.
Things got off to a slow start when the Warriors fell behind 7-0 to start the game. They went on a little run of their own as Justin Holiday and James Michael McAdoo led the scoring in the first quarter. Both teams continued to trade buckets, and the Warriors found themselves down 20-17 at the end of the period.
The second quarter was much of the same, as both teams continued to go back and forth. A few sloppy turnovers led the Warriors to be down as many as 9 in the quarter, but Holiday continued to keep the score close. The highlight of the first half came in the final seconds as Holiday hit a buzzer beater 3-pointer to close the period. The Warriors finished the half shooting 40% and trailed 44-38 at the break.
“The effort was there, the execution was not, for about 3 quarters,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said, “I really thought we had made some strides in practice, but this is a big physical team that the Lakers have put on the floor and they just knocked us off our stride right away. We couldn’t execute. We couldn’t stand up to the physical challenge the first couple quarters, so we kept turning the ball over.
“I think at halftime we had three assists and 12 turnovers or something,” Kerr added.
The second half started and the lead grew for the Lakers. The Warriors found themselves down by as many as 11 points in the 3rd quarter, but managed to get the deficit down to 6 by the end of the period. On the last play of the quarter Aaron Craft took the ball coast to coast and finished over two defenders in the lane. Craft finished with 13 points on 4/7 shooting, and was a big defensive presence as well.
Craft opened the 4th quarter with a 3-pointer, his second of the night, which cut in to the lead even more. The Warriors eventually crawled back in to the game on another Craft 3 which brought the Warriors within 1. The score was all even, and the Warriors had the ball on the final possession. Steve Kerr drew up a play that found Holiday open for a game winning 3-pointer that fell short.
The game headed in to a two-minute overtime period. As both teams traded baskets, the game was close heading in to the final 20 seconds. Again Justin Holiday hit a clutch shot that put the Warriors up 88-87 with 6.1 seconds left. The shot appeared to be a three-pointer from courtside, but the referees only awarded the Warriors with two.
“We had a couple of really good looks that Justin got,” Kerr said, “One, he knocked down, which was great. I thought it was the game-winner but it was just a little bit too much time.”
After the shot went down, the referees stopped the clock to address an issue with the shotclock.
“The clock stops and people are subbing in,” an exasperated Kerr reflected, “There’s no timeout and all of a sudden mayhem ensues. We seem to have this shotclock issue constantly and, I mean, the game’s supposed to keep going with no timeout — ball goes through the hoop, they’re supposed to inbound. Instead there’s like a minute and all kinds of stuff. It was total chaos at the end of the game…Great game.”
Just when everyone thought the Warriors were going to push their winning streak to 17 consecutive games, Jordan Clarkson beat the buzzer with a tip-in off the Julius Randle miss. Although the play was not reviewable, the tip left Clarkson’s hand with 0.1 seconds left.
The Warriors were never able to stay in a rhythm. In a game dictated by small scoring spurts, bad turnovers, and sloppy play were what ultimately decided this game. With a little bit of luck things could have easily swung the other way. Although the streak is no more, the Warriors found a way to fight back into the game, something Golden State did a lot of last season. Justin Holiday led all scorers with 26 points on 9/18 shooting including 4/8 from deep.
[NOTE: Poor Man’s Commish contributed to this report.]
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