Last night, the Golden State Warriors did something they haven’t in 18 straight games: lose to the Phoenix Suns. The 115-111 defeat at Oracle Arena marked the Warriors’ fourth loss in their last six games and, to guard Klay Thompson, the loss was the team’s “worst of the season”.
After the game, Thompson was calling for more energy from Warriors fans at Oracle Arena in this, the team’s farewell season to the building. Next season, Golden State will play its game at the sparkling, new Chase Center located in San Francisco. Last night, the Warriors gave up a 16-point first-half lead and could not contain Devin Booker. He torched the Warriors for 37 points (on 13-for-23 shooting) and 11 rebounds in the Suns’ win.
“It’s a long season,” Thompson said, per ESPN’s Nick Friedell. “And we’ve been playing a lot of basketball for five years now, so you’re not going to be perfect for 82 games — we’ve had too many missteps — but at the end of the day, that’s the first time we’ve lost to that team in 19 games. So it’s ugly but … I expect our crowd to be little more into it, too. Like, I know it’s not the playoffs, but it is our last go-around at Oracle. Least you can stand up or something when we make a good play, especially in the beginning. We need that energy, especially this time of the year. It’s hard to conjure up energy every single night ’cause you’re looking forward to the playoffs and that run.
“So we expect our fans to kind of bring that from the jump. … It’s like us, though. You can’t bring it every night, but still it helps. … It doesn’t matter if we’re playing the Suns or the Bucks, whoever it is. We need that energy from them because we feed off that.”
Stephen Curry and Thompson were a combined 16 of 42 — 8 of 30 on 3s after a 4-for-22 start — and the Warriors went 10 of 43 from beyond the arc. The Suns defeated Golden State for the first time since a 107-95 victory on Nov. 9, 2014, and earned their first road win in 20 tries against the Western Conference this season.
The Warriors followed a great win against Denver two nights earlier with a dud.
”Let’s not forget last year was way worse than this, way worse than this, with injuries and things like that. We have pretty much everybody healthy,” Stephen Curry said. ”We talked about the things we need to get better at going into the playoffs and just haven’t done it. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, which I think we like right now.
”We’re getting challenged, we’re getting teams’ best shots.”
All-Star forward Kevin Durant had 25 points for the Warriors before leaving with a bruised right ankle midway through the fourth on a night his teammates struggled from near and far. Warriors coach Steve Kerr, however, did not expect Durant’s injury to be serious.
“I think he’s going to be all right,” Kerr said afterwards, per Mark Medina of The Mercury News. “I don’t think it’s bad. I talked to him briefly. He didn’t think it was too bad.”
Overall, though, the Warriors are in a bit of a funk. They haven’t won consecutive games since their five-game win streak from Feb. 2-12.
“It’s an uncomfortable feeling, which I think we like right now because it’s not all coasting — it’s we’re getting challenged. We’re getting teams’ best shots,” Curry said, per ESPN. “Our weaknesses are pretty glaring in terms of defensively and how we’ve started games. So we can talk about it and I keep saying it, but we understand what we need to do to get better. But I like this situation a lot better than last year.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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