The Warriors started flashing the white flag 26 hours before taking the court Wednesday night in Portland. The only question was whether they had enough manpower to pull it back down against the Trail Blazers.
They did not.
With DeMarcus Cousins, Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston all designated to take the night off for rest, Warriors coach Steve Kerr went heavy with the bench and it didn’t flourish in a 120-103 loss at Moda Center.
Put simply, the Warriors came undone in the fourth quarter and were outscored 35-12. Here are three quick takeaways from the game that snapped the Warriors’ 11-game road winning streak.
The KD and Steph Show: With Klay Thompson struggling with his shot – he did record eight assists – it was up to fellow All-Stars Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry to carry the scoring load. They responded, combining for 64 points.
Durant was dazzling in the first quarter, throwing in 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting -- including draining his only 3-point attempt. He finished with 32 points on 12-of-17 shooting, including 3-of-4 from deep.
After a 14-point first half, Curry turned it up in the third quarter, scoring 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting, including 3-of-4 from beyond the arc. He also totaled 32 points on 10-of-24 shooting, including 5-of-14 from deep.
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Durant and Curry did their part to offset Thompson’s nine-point night, during which he was 2-of-16 from the field, including 2-of-7 from deep.
Third quarter wake-up call: The Warriors were trailing, 78-75, with 7:24 left in the third quarter when Kevin Durant got tangled up with hulking Portland center Jusuf Nurkic. Nurkic held, Durant chopped and got the whistle.
That physical sequence pushed the game to a higher level of engagement. The temperature in the room went up, and it didn’t help the Warriors.
From that point on, the intensity cranked up. There was a Nurkic elbow to the neck of Draymond Green, and a dustup between Thompson and Blazers big man Zach Collins that resulted in a double technical foul. There was, finally, Kerr getting ejected for vigorously protesting a flagrant-1 foul call on Green.
Though the Warriors lacked their edge early, they were fully engaged down the stretch. That, however, did not translate into field goals.
The bench did OK, not great: The Warriors paid a price for their reliance on the bench. Though they got a strong performance from Jonas Jerebko, none of the other reserves stood out.
Jerebko was terrific with six points, five rebounds, three assists, one block and one steal.
On a night when a third scorer could have made a difference, deep shooters Quinn Cook and Damion Lee came up short.
Cook scored 3 points on 1-of-6 shooting, while Lee put in 6 points on 2-of-8 from the field.
The bench as a whole shot 10-of-28 from the field, 2-of-9 from beyond the arc.
