On February 27th, Stephen Curry drained a 38 foot three pointer, giving the Golden State Warriors a hard fought 121-118 overtime win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, in what was regarded as one of the best regular season games ever. For the season so far, he has 369 made three pointers, smashing the previous NBA record of 286 (his own).
This season he has been in sublime form, carrying the team for many a game when the others fail to show up.
Considering all of that, a relatively open three pointer two feet or so past the three point arc should have been an easy basket. However with 5.3 seconds left, Curry missed that shot and failed to tie the game for the Warriors, as they suffered their first home defeat since an overtime loss to the Chicago Bulls on January 27th 2015.
The 106-109 loss to the Celtics on Friday was the also the first for the Warriors in regulation since losing to the San Antonio Spurs on November 11th 2014. Their unbeaten run at home included 36 straight this season and 54 straight overall, dating back to January last year.
Golden State’s players have relentless self belief in each other and have a certain attitude or swagger about how well they have been playing this season. Whether at home or on the road, the team has eventually channeled the attitude come crunch time, and finished as winners when the final buzzer sounds.
Friday was just not their night. The Warriors trailed against the Celtics with just a couple of minutes to go and the team began making its run towards the win. They would have had the win in the bag if it wasn’t for Curry missing the pretty open three available to him in the final possession.
"Every one of them I think is going down. But it didn't," Curry said. "All things considered, it was a pretty good look at it. ... We've gotten away with some games that we probably shouldn't have won with some shots like that. And tonight it wasn't our night."
Friday’s loss was a rare instance or “the one game” that the Warriors’ opposition didn’t crumble under pressure and they failed to capitalise. Given the team’s 68-8 record, it’s safe to assume that doesn’t happen too often. Having said that, it’s important to understand that Boston had earned this win just as much as the Warriros failed to do so.
Boston’s team effort on both ends
The San Antonio Spurs have been doing it for quite a while but over the past couple of seasons Golden State seems to have mastered the art of sharing the ball when the next player has a better shot.
The Warriors’ offense includes a lot of screens and screens and rolls which means any team facing them must be alert enough to constantly switch on the next player when the ball moves. On Friday, Boston were spot on with their defensive rotations with established perimeter defender Avery Bradley taking the responsibility of checking Stephen Curry and a good two player in Evan Turner taking Klay Thompson.
Other than Bradley, Jae Crowder is the only other outstanding one on one defender that Boston has and he was taking the night off, recuperating from an ankle surgery. So it wasn’t like the Celtics had an all defensive line-up against the Warriors, it was their five players on the court playing together and executing efficiently on the defensive end that made life difficult for the Golden State.
The turnovers stat for the Warriors (22) was testament to Boston’s tenacious clamp down defense.
Bradley defense on Curry was worth talking about it, it was a model for how guards across the league should contain the reigning MVP. Bradley got up in Curry’s face, cutting out the breating room he normally gets to show off his fancy dribble.
With no space there, Curry was forced to use his body to protect his dribble which forced a lot of errors out of him, including a career high 7 turnovers of the team’s 12 in the first half. The limited space meant all the screens Curry received from his teammates were way up close to half-court, on one instance he even caused a back court violation off of Curry.
On the offensive end, All-Star guard Isaiah Thomas has been phenomenal of late. He has been the leading scorer for the team in the last 15 games, but came out flat in the first half of the game against the Warriors.
So despite having no points from Thomas (career low), the Celtics went into the locker room at halftime with a one point lead over the Warriors. They feasted on Golden State’s turnovers scoring 27 points from the Warriors’ 22 turnovers.
When the third quarter began, Thomas in his new Kobe All-Star shoes went from no points to 18 in no time but Curry dueled him in the third period leading to both teams scoring above 35 in the quarter.
Golden State fails to make a run late
The reigning champs had 22 turnovers for the game, not the first time they have had 20+ turnovers this season. What was more important about that stat were the team’s four turnovers in the fourth quarter, couple coming in the last couple of minutes of the game.
No matter how they start the game the Warriors have always eventually found their way back and won games, they just couldn’t do it on Friday.
So many of the Warriors 68 wins this season have come after the team has started the game really bad but they always find their way back. The most recent such instance was against the Utah Jazz, on a second night of a back to back.
On Friday, Golden State very much looked like they were making a run but a costly turnover by Brandon Rush in transition, and another by Draymond Green while dishing out the ball after a pick and roll, proved to be mighty costly.
The Warriors, led by Curry, put up a fight but came up short and there were a lot of stats that stood out after the game:
