(Photo: http://www.nba.com/warriors/gallery/20131206?page=6)
Young and inexperienced teams often play to the level of their opponent and, last night, with the Houston Rockets hobbling with Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik out, and Chandler Parson a game-time “go” but with a bad back, as well as coming off a thrilling 27-point comeback against the Toronto Raptors at #Roaracle, it seemed like the Golden State Warriors — albeit still missing 9-year veteran Andre Iguodala with a hamstring injury — just thought they could sleepwalk on the court at the Toyota Center and automatically be competitive.
Not against at team like Houston, who came in with a sense of urgency, having back-to-back losses to the lowly Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns.
Per Monte Poole on CSN Bay Area:
The Warriors’ shooting was bad, their defense worse, their rebounding woefully pathetic. So bad was this performance that one has to wonder if something has gone wrong within their generally solid framework.
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There is a long list of ghastly numbers, beginning with the 22 turnovers committed by the Warriors, with eight attributed to Stephen Curry. Klay Thompson didn’t score until the third quarter and shot 2-of-10. Harrison Barnes missed 10 of his 16 shots. The Warriors made only two of their 16 3-point attempts.
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The biggest crime of all, however, was the ease with which Rockets big men Dwight Howard and Terrance Jones routed Warriors big men Andrew Bogut and David Lee.
Carl Steward of the Mercury News described these crimes:
The Rockets paraded through the paint in the first half, with Terrence Jones repeatedly getting the better of David Lee, and Dwight Howard taking advantage of a Warriors front line that was ravaged by foul trouble. Andrew Bogut picked up two fouls in the first 8:28 and had five before the third quarter was even half over. Backup Jermaine O’Neal had two fouls after just 47 seconds of guarding Howard.
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The first-year Rocket is notoriously bad from the charity stripe, but Howard had more free throws (five) in the first quarter than the Warriors had field goals (four). Howard already had a double-double early in the second quarter and shook off Mark Jackson‘s third-quarter Hack-A-Howard strategy, finishing with 22 points and 18 rebounds.
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The Warriors gave up 54 points in the paint and 25 more at the free throw line. The somber locker room housed plenty of players staring at ugly individual stat lines. Klay Thompson had five points on 2-of-10 shooting, and Harrison Barnes was just 5 for 16 from the field. Bogut had four points and five rebounds opposite of Howard, and Lee managed just seven shots and 11 points on a quiet night. The normally sharpshooting Warriors failed to make at least five 3-pointers for the first time this season, and also set a new low in assists (10).
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“We’ve just been bad,” Jackson said. “Across the board.”
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For the second straight game, the problems were acute early, but Curry said “there’s no magic formula” for fixing the first-half struggles. “We know what it is,” he said. “Play harder, play better, especially on the road.”
Poole’s recap article was aptly headlined “Failure To Launch” and Bogut added this quote in Poole’s rewind article:
“Our starting group needs to come out with better energy and buckle down defensively, even if we missed every shot in the first quarter,” Bogut sniffed.
Speaking of Bogut, he got his fifth foul (again!) early in the third quarter, definitely a topic I will have to ask about the next time he does media availability after practice or shootaround. He was there on Wednesday, but the mood after the 27-point comeback on Tuesday was of utmost confidence and having momentum that day, no one thought to ask it, besides the fact that Bogut can be a bit intimidating during interviews (more on this later in a #GoDubs Diary post).
Rusty Simmons was first to note Bogut’s fifth foul on Twitter, as he writes:
Things went from terrible to unbearable in the third quarter, when Bogut picked up his fifth personal foul with 8 ½ minutes remaining and Houston pushed its lead to 28 points. The Warriors tried the Hack-a-Howard strategy for two possessions, but even that didn’t work as Howard made 3 of 4 free throws and extended the Rockets’ lead back to 78-54 with 5:03 remaining.
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Briefly: Fresh out of the ice tub, Iguodala took pregame jump shots, progressing from the stationary free throws he had been taking earlier in the week. The team hasn’t set a timeline for his return, but the Dec. 21 game against the Lakers would be the four-week mark from the injury occurring in Los Angeles and give him a warm-up game before returning to Denver.
I’m putting on my underground Asian-American community amateur basketball tournament head coach hat on here, but especially without a seasoned veteran like Iguodala — and I count Bogut only as a 6- or 7-year veteran due to his big injuries — I can see a young and inexperienced team quite simply taking depleted or otherwise non-elite teams too lightly, not getting “hyped” to play such teams.
While in the playoffs, this actually won’t matter much. The Warriors play up to their opponents, but it is, actually, bad basketball. Due the other teams in the league get intimidated by this kind of play? No. Especially the older, veteran teams that have had rosters together for several years, these teams know that playing on emotions is fleeting and they know that they just have to weather the Dubs’ storm and keep the game close.
As for referees and 50/50 calls going the Warriors way, don’t think that employees or contractors of the NBA live in a bubble. They, too, are subject to the hearsay of the league, even if they are not watching every highlight on ESPN or reading every Warriors beatwriter’s article. This kind of immature play will be gleaned by osmosis and does not garner instant respect from the trained professionals who are, at the end of the day, still human beings.
And, worse, rarely are young players able to simply realize they are young players and going through growing pains. Yes, if this teams stays mostly intact through the next four or more years, they will be that veteran team at that time, but right now, there is only one man who can rescue them from this: Iguodala.
Perhaps the only bright spot was Kent Bazemore‘s smash down the lane. It’s funny, last year he had his break-out game in the blowout loss to the same Rockets in the same Toyota Arena, when the Warriors were hell-bent on preventing Houston from setting the NBA three-pointers-made record.
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