The Warriors nearly make the comeback of the season before Steph Curry gets hurt in a loss to the Indiana Pacers.
The Warriors play their worst first half of the season before a huge third-quarter comeback, only for Curry to get hurt. Thoughts on the Warriors' future, Jonathan Kuminga, Jordan Poole, and more.
The Warriors’ 119-125 loss to the Indiana Pacers on the road was one of the most miserable games I’d watched all season until it was one of the most exciting games of the season until it was, all of a sudden, again, one of the most miserable games of the season. The end result of the game doesn’t really matter now. What really matters is that Steph Curry injured his shoulder and immediately wanted out of the game in the third quarter and did not return to the game. If Curry’s shoulder injury is anything more than a stinger that he can recover from in a few games, the Warriors’ playoff dreams are effectively over.
That might sound hyperbolic, but it’s not. Third-quarter comeback aside, how could you watch this Warriors’ team get humiliated in the first half by a Pacers team starting a 6’3 rookie, Andrew Nehmbard, at the power forward and think that this team as presently constructed, is a playoff team? The Warriors have had practically no margin for error this season in large part of their roster construction. Just a few weeks ago, the Warriors lost a game when Curry scored 50 points and they may well have done the same thing tonight had he not gotten injured.
When Curry came out of the game, he had 38 points on 19 shots in 29 minutes and the Warriors trailed by 13 points. The Pacers tasted blood and after drubbing the Warriors in the first half, clearly did not fear them. Pacers’ rookie, Benedict Mathurin, was particularly impressive. He finished the night with 24 points on 14 shots and authored two runs on his own that took the wind out of the Warriors’ sails at the start of the second quarter and the late third quarter. Also impressive was Pacers’ star third-year guard, Tyrese Haliburton, who scored 29 points on 5/10 shooting from deep and is in the midst of a 19-point and 10-assist season. You’ll probably never forget that Haliburton went #12 in the 2020 draft and he’ll probably never forget that the Warriors drafted James Wiseman over him. Here’s Haliburton talking about his draft night experience from a 2021 interview with Sam Amick from The Athletic:
On draft day, specifically, I thought I could go as high as (No.) 2 to Golden State. The realistic spots I was thinking were Golden State at 2, Chicago at 4, maybe Atlanta at 6, Detroit at 7, San Antonio at 11 and Sacramento at 12.
The Pacers might be a young team, but they play hard, they’re well-coached, and they’re confident. Whenever the Warriors got back in the game, the Pacers took their blows and punched back. Teams like the Warriors — a middling .500 team — are susceptible to pretty much any team in the league when they’re confident and because the Warriors are the defending champs, they have a target on their back. Teams like to play against the Warriors and measure their mettle against them. Tonight, the Pacers were a better team, even before Steph Curry got hurt and they were the more composed team, as evidenced by Draymond Green fishing for an ejection in the fourth quarter.
All of this is to say, if the Warriors when mostly healthy are falling down 25 points to a fellow .500 team, this is not a team worth believing in without significant changes to the roster. If Steph Curry is out for a few weeks, the Warriors will almost certainly go into a free fall. Such a free fall would make it foolish to actually use the Warriors’ meager war chest of assets to acquire, say, a Kelly Olynyk, an Alex Caruso, or a Jakob Poetl-level player. Last season’s Warriors went 8-10 without Steph Curry and they had a handful of useful veterans to weather his absence. This team, which employs 6 players 23 or younger, is 0-3 without Curry. It’s hard to imagine them doing better than 8-10 over an extended absence from Steph, which makes it all the more frustrating that the Warriors blew a bunch of winnable games earlier in the season while Steve Kerr tinkered with his rotations and let the James Wiseman experiment run its course.
Injuries are unpredictable, but they’re a part of basketball and they’ve been a part of Steph Curry’s career. Since his age-29 season in 2017-18, Steph has missed an average of nearly 18 games a season, not counting his 2019-20 season. As Steph ages, it’s safe to bet that he’s going to keep missing about 15-20 games a season. This is all to say, there was always a very good chance that Steph Curry would miss a handful of games this season. Last season, the Warriors were 47-22 when Steph got hurt against the Boston Celtics — the Warriors had built a comfortable buffer to withstand a minor injury. This team does not have that buffer and it’s likely that tonight marks the effective end of the Warriors’ dream of winning a championship, let alone making the playoffs.
Some other thoughts and observations:
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