The Warriors give away the game in crunch time to the Denver Nuggets and go home with a 3-1 lead.
The Warriors fold in crunch time without Draymond Green, Steve Kerr gets cute, Jordan Poole struggles, and the Nuggets' role players win the day.
With an opportunity to sweep the Denver Nuggets on the road, Steve Kerr went for a kill shot at the beginning of the 4th quarter and rolled out a modified Death Lineup with Andre Iguodala at the center. The Warriors’ three guards, Steph Curry, Jordan Poole, and Klay Thompson, played the entirety of the 4th quarter and in the case of Curry and Wiggins, the 6 and 3 final minutes of the third quarter as well. In the end, Steve Kerr’s gamble didn’t work out — Draymond Green fouled out with a couple minutes left in the game and although the Warriors actually took their first lead since the early first quarter after Green came out of the game, their poor execution in the final two minutes of the game gave the Nuggets a hard-earned, 121-116 victory.
The Warriors’ inability to close today’s game out was more annoying than it was concerning, at least in the grand scheme of things. The Nuggets’ role players shot incredibly well, Steph Curry missed four free throws and looked quite mortal in the first half, Jordan Poole scored his lowest point total since February, and the Warriors still managed to claw their way into a lead late in the fourth quarter. What makes tonight’s loss annoying is what it rendered irrelevant:
Andrew Wiggins played his best game of the playoffs and scored 11 points in an ugly second quarter to keep the Warriors afloat, cut with vigor and made clutch and opportune shots at the rim during crunch time, and was aggressive on the glass. Shit, if Wiggins’ putback dunk at the 42 mark of the fourth quarter hadn’t been explosive enough to bounce off of the rim, the Warriors probably would have won the game.
Klay Thompson fought off silly foul trouble to deliver the Warriors with much-needed buckets time and time again in a fashion that was reminiscent of a much lower-stakes Vintage Klay performance. Klay finished the game with 32 points on 12/20 shooting with 7 three-point makes and scored not only on quick-trigger catch and shoot threes, but in the post and attacking closeouts.
Kevon Looney had his best defensive performance of the series against Nikola Jokic, which is something of a backhanded compliment but is still worth highlighting. If one of Steph Curry or Jordan Poole had hit shots early or the Warriors hadn’t been so loose with the ball in the first half, Looney’s stout defense could have helped the Warriors trim, or perhaps, overtake the Nuggets’ lead prior to halftime.
What makes this Warriors’ loss mostly unconcerning in the grand scheme of things is that the Nuggets had to fight like hell for this very tight victory. Consider all of the things that went wrong for the Warriors and then try to imagine all of that happening again at the Chase Center and the Nuggets getting 60 combined points from Aaron Gordon, Monte Morris, and Bones Hyland. The rookie, Hyland, scored 9 points in nearly 90 seconds in the second quarter, Morris hit 5 threes in the third quarter en route to a 24-point night, DeMarcus Cousins had 10 points off of the bench, and Aaron Gordon had 19 points and a few clutch shots in the fourth quarter. The odds are that the Nuggets will not have that type of luck at the Chase Center on Wednesday night, which makes it even more frustrating that Steve Kerr got clever with a SLOB play down 2 points with 31 seconds left in the game, which led to an Otto Porter Jr. turnover passing the ball inbounds to Andrew Wiggins near the bucket, rather than letting Steph Curry cook Nikola Jokic at the top of the key.
In the final six minutes of the game, the Warriors had great success dragging Jokic into actions where he had to defend Steph Curry in space. Even when Draymond Green fouled out and Curry was having OPJ set screens for him, those actions resulted in good shots. Purposefully going away from that action in a game where Kerr had already ridden his key players for far more consecutive minutes than normal was irresponsible and foolish.
In spite of that, today’s game should be a mere blip in the road for this Warriors’ team. This series should be over on Wednesday night in San Francisco and hopefully, this frustrating loss can serve as a clarifying experience. The Warriors learned that they can survive a game where Draymond Green fouls out by dragging weak defenders into pick and roll action — shocking! — and they learned that an aggressive Andrew Wiggins can rescue otherwise dead possessions on offense when he cuts with purpose and crashes the offensive glass and Jordan Poole had his first taste of a rough playoff showing. When the Warriors have to play games with higher stakes in the Western Conference Semifinals, these lessons will hopefully inform their performance and help them avoid an annoying and avoidable loss like tonight’s game.
1st Q:
12:00 — Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Green/Looney: 0-0, tie game.
8:14 — Curry/Poole/Wiggins/Green/Looney: 13-6, Warriors lead.
5:35 — Curry/Poole/Wiggins/OPJ/Green: 15-10, Warriors lead.
4:45 — Curry/GPII/Poole/OPJ/Green: 15-12, Warriors lead.
4:01 — Curry/GPII/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica: 15-14, Warriors lead.
Before a single minute of game 4 had been played, Draymond Green and Aaron Gordon picked up double technicals after Gordon took offense to Green poking Nikola Jokic in the face on a baseline double team. The allocation of the double techs and the flagrant foul review of Green’s poke dragged the early minute of the game out and they had the immediate effect of the officials imposing a tight whistle. Klay Thompson was called for this foul on the very next possession after the Gordon/Green bruhaha:
That early foul on Thompson ended up being rather impactful — in the next three minutes, Thompson hit scored 8 points, hit two threes, and was then assessed with his second foul at the game 8:14 mark of the game, at which point Steve Kerr subbed him out and put in Steph Curry. After Curry checked into the game, he took and missed five shots in as many minutes, and the Warriors went through a four-minute stretch where they committed Jordan Poole scored the team’s only field goal.
When Jordan Poole checked out at the 4:01 mark, Steph Curry was forced to carry a punchless offensive supporting cast of GPII, Andre Iguodala, Otto Porter Jr., and Nemanja Bjelica. Curry hit a midrange jumper at the 3:57 mark and from that point on and until he hit a much-needed three with under a minute left, the Warriors didn’t make another field goal in this lineup’s minutes. All in all, the Nuggets scored 14 points to the Warriors’ 7 during this lineup’s minutes thanks not only to back-to-back threes from Nikola Jokic but a disorientingly dumb turnover by Andre Iguodala and a Warriors’ shot clock violation.
2nd Q:
12:00 — Poole/Thompson/Iguodala/OPJ/Bjelica: 21-26, Nuggets lead.
11:11 — Poole/Thompson/Iguodala/OPJ/Kuminga: 21-29, Nuggets lead.
10:33 — Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/OPJ/Kuminga: 21-31, Nuggets lead.
9:03 — Curry/Thompson/Wiggins/Kuminga/Green: 23-40, Nuggets lead.
6:24 — Curry/Poole/Wiggins/Kuminga/Green: 34-46, Nuggets lead.
0:34 — Curry/Poole/Wiggins/Kuminga/Looney: 51-61, Nuggets lead.
0:00.6 — Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Kuminga: 52-63, Nuggets lead.
At the 11:11 mark of the second quarter, Jonathan Kuminga played his first rotation minutes of the playoffs. About 40 seconds later, Andrew Wiggins subbed in for Andre Iguodala and the Warriors proceeded to get run off of the court as the Nuggets went on 9-0 run in less than a minute and a half Many things went wrong for the Warriors in this Denver; Jonathan Kuminga took and early shot-clock three and was relegated to spacing the floor on the perimeter as Otto Porter Jr. set high screens for Jordan Poole, Bones Hyland hit three consecutive shots from deep in the span of 60 seconds, and DeMarcus Cousins briefly looked like the Boogie of his ill-fated prime.
But Boogie giveth and Boogie taketh — after drawing a foul on Draymond Green in the post, Cousins walked right into Green’s body and as the two of them got briefly intertwined, the refs called a technical foul on Cousins. That technical foul slowed the game down and seemed to have the effect of resetting things for the Warriors. After Cousins’ technical foul, the Warriors let the Nuggets’ lead climb as high as 16 points but brought it back down to 8 points after Andrew Wiggins tipped in one of his own floaters. Wiggins’ aggression and 11 points were pretty much the only good thing that came out of the Warriors’ second quarter because pretty much any other time the Warriors started to create momentum, they’d find a way to self-sabotage.
Among several bad things:
Steph Curry missed two free throws
Klay Thompson played only 6 minutes in the quarter, none of which were alongside Steph Curry and Jordan Poole.
The Warriors committed 8 turnovers in the second quarter of pretty much any and all flavor of turnovers. Andre Iguodala threw the ball away inexplicably, Draymond Green made a trademark turnover lobbing the ball into a crowded paint, Klay Thompson was called for traveling, and Jordan Poole lost the ball twice simply falling down with a live dribble. All in all, the Nuggets scored 13 points off of the Warriors’ turnovers, which was more than Denver’s 13-point lead at the end of the half.
In the final seconds of the second quarter, the refs made one of the worst foul calls of recent memory and tagged Klay Thompson with his fourth call of the game on what should have been a Warriors’ bucket on a baseline out of bounds. You can see that play below:
3rd Q:
12:00 — Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Green/Looney: 52-63, Nuggets lead.
7:33 — Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Green: 67-74, Nuggets lead.
5:13 — Curry/GPII/Poole/OPJ/Green: 74-84, Nuggets lead.
3:09 — Curry/Thompson/Iguodala/OPJ/Green: 81-92, Warriors lead.
0:36 — Curry/Wiggins/Iguodala/OPJ/Green: 88-86, Nuggets lead.
Given Klay Thompson’s foul trouble and the possibility of sweeping the Nuggets on the road, it wouldn’t have been surprising if Steve Kerr made a lineup change to start Steph Curry in the second half. But Kerr turned to the same starting lineup to start the third quarter, which turned into a shootout in the early minutes of the period. Klay Thompson hit three shots from deep and scored 13 points in the 6 minutes of the period, but the Nuggets survived his hot shooting because Monte Morris hit four threes of his own and Nikola Jokic added a three.
To give you a sense of how much Steve Kerr was going for it, Steph Curry checked in at the 7:31 mark so that the Warriors could go small with the Death Lineup 3.0. That lineup played about two minutes together before Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. checked into the game. As was the case in the first half, turnovers and silly fouls prevented the Warriors from truly putting the fear of God in the Nuggets. Klay Thompson managed to avoid picking up his fifth foul of the game despite being involved in a few near fouls, but Otto Porter Jr. picked up a silly offensive foul, Steph Curry committed an egregious traveling violation on what should have been an easy layup in transition, and Curry managed to miss three free-throws in the period. In spite of all of this, the Warriors trailed by only 9 points at the end of the quarter.
4th Q:
12:00 — Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Iguodala: 89-98, Nuggets lead.
8:04 — Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Green: 98-108, Nuggets lead.
2:05 — Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/OPJ: 116-117, Nuggets lead.
0:42 — Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: 121-121, tie game.
0:33 — Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/OPJ: 121-123, Nuggets lead.
0:22 — Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: 121-123, Nuggets lead.
0:07 — Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: 121-126, Nuggets lead.
Steve Kerr opted to go small with a mixed unit of the bench and starters to start the fourth quarter. Notably absent from this unit were Nemanja Bjelica and Gary Payton II, who have been mainstays of the second unit. Instead, Andre Iguodala was matched up against DeMarcus Cousins in a Death Lineup 3.0 variant without Draymond Green. Through the first four minutes of the quarter, the Nuggets played the Warriors even against the Death Lineup with Iguodala at the 5. The Warriors hunted DeMarcus Cousins in high pick and rolls and off-ball actions — this resulted in a layup and three for Curry and a three for Klay Thompson — but the Nuggets were just as aggressive about seeking out Iguodala in the post and having Cousins bury him under the basket. Cousins scored 6 points in these minutes, including one impressive fadeaway jumper on the baseline, and after Bones Hyland scored a bucket on Klay Thompson, who opted not to contest with contact at the rim, Steve Kerr called a timeout to sub in Draymond Green for Iguodala.
From that point on, Steve Kerr rode his Death Lineup until he couldn’t. The Nuggets, to their credit, absorbed several Warriors’ shots that could have been momentum changers and hit their own clutch shots. After the Warriors got the Nuggets’ lead down to 8 points with 6 minutes left, Aaron Gordon hit a contested jumper late in the clock that bounced on the rim several times before going in, Klay Thompson hit a three, and then Monte Morris hit a tough midrange jumper to put the Nuggets up by 9 points. It was at this point that the Warriors began a mini-run and started seeking out Nikola Jokic with high pick and rolls.
In the span of two and a half minutes, the Warriors scored three consecutive possessions where Jokic was dragged into the action and the likely MVP only hit one shot in return during those minutes. The Warriors got the Nuggets’ lead down to a single point after Draymond Green found a cutting Andrew Wiggins for a dunk with 2:28 left, but on the very next possession, Green fouled out swiping down on Aaron Gordon in the restricted area.
For those of you keeping count, can you remember a time the Warriors went into the final minutes of a game without Draymond Green? Otto Porter Jr. was the replacement for Draymond Green and the Warriors went right back to dragging Nikola Jokic into the action. On the two possessions following Green’s disqualification, the Steph Curry hit an and-one layup and a long step-back over Jokic to put the Warriors up by two points.
The Warriors wouldn’t score again until the game was well decided, but not for lack of effort. Klay Thompson got a great look at three and Andrew Wiggins, whose play in the second half kept the Warriors in the game, soared in for a putback dunk and... proceeded to spike the ball with such authority that it came ricocheting off of the rim and got tipped out of bounds by Otto Porter Jr. Nikola Jokic proceeded to score on the very next possession and with the Warriors down by only 2 points, Steve Kerr drew up a very Galaxy Brain ATO that got picked apart by uh... Austin Rivers. You can see that play — one that the Nuggets clearly knew was coming and effectively gave them the game — below:
On the very next possession, Monte Morris put the dagger in the Warriors when a possession of reasonably good defense turned into a drive and kick by Nikola Jokic. All in all, Steph Cury played 37 minutes, 18 of which were without rest, and Steve Kerr’s heavy usage of his Death Lineup was effectively all for naught.
The word hubris comes to mind when calling the line up which did not flourish yesterday , the death line up. In fact it ushered in the GSW demise.