The Warriors: The Turning Point
We all acknowledge that as the Warriors feel their way toward the playoffs this year, there will be some stumbles. Well, there are stumbles and then there are the kind of STUMBLES that make you realize this may have been the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
Last Wednesday against the defending NBA champeen San Antonio Spurs, the Warriors were stripped buck naked and exposed as pretenders. The Spurs absolutely had their way with the shell-shocked tribe. Can you say "low bridge"? It's pronounced Spurs 113 Warriors 89.
This was the War-wearies first truly vicious beatdown of the season thus far, and it was the kind of drubbing that can rattle a team just starting to believe. Like the Clippers game last week, this game was supposed to be a benchmark against which the War-heads could mark their progress toward competitive respectability. Nobody really expected them to win the game, but it would have been nice if they hadn't played that way.
It was like watching a lowlight reel of the last five years of Warriors basketball. Matador D, feeble rebounding (Spurs 52, Warriors 27), total lack of frontcourt presence (Spurs 60 points in the paint, Warriors 36), barely a nod to any kind of set offense, poor shot selection, and even poorer shooting (54.9 percent for the Spurs, 37.7 percent for the Warriors). The Warriors have committed themselves to living by the Baron and dying by the Baron this year, and against the Spurs, the Baron was awful (3-12 from the field and a technical foul) and the War-jacks done died. The entire team was impatient, unspirited, and completely overwhelmed. It was a startling flashback to reality.
SFist Chris "The Truthmaker" Contributing
Image from Street Art Gallery
But this low point of the season, when it was painfully revealed how far the Warriors have to go, might have precipiated the season's crucial turning point. Whether it's Cadwallader College or Carver High, every down-and-out team needs its magical competitive epiphany, that moment of utter futility so all-encompassing that the team's collective shame and frustration fuses it together into an entity more substantial than the sum of its parts.
What was more important for this team and their season of hope was not the defeat itself, but how they handled it. The Warriors of seasons past would slink off with their tails between their legs for about the next four months before finally reviving themselves for the last two meaningless weeks of the season.
But these appear to be different Warriors. In fact, after giving up 66 points in the first half en route to spotting a 30-point cushion, the boys actually outscored the Curs by six points in the second half. And number one draft choice Ike Diogu, who threatened to extend the Warriors curse by breaking his hand in the preseason, played his first minutes of the year and was the team's second-highest scorer with 11 points in 14 minutes.
Just two nights later, with the shadow of the Curs defeat laying long across the team psyche, the tribe traveled to Utah and scrapped its way to a very gutty 94-90 win on the road against a team that had already beaten them in Oakland earlier this season.
The turning point. The fulcrum on which their entire season perilously balanced. The Utah game. It could have very easily been the beginning of the end. It was a critical, season-making contest; the most important game of the season thus far. A loss would have leveled their record at .500, given them their first two-game losing streak this year, and started that little voice inside their collective head questioning, doubting, conceding.
They got the win, they got the mo', they righted the ship, and they're making their move. The next night after coming from behind to beat the Spazz, our boys absolutely took the Toronto Craptors to the woodshed, doling out a 26-point pasting. Monday night they continued their run with a relatively easy win over a solid New Orleans Hornets team.
Hey, don't look now, but that's three wins in a row since being pasted by San Antonio, and the War-hoops are standing tall in second place in the Pacific Division at 10-6. No, that's not a misprint, that's 10-6 and rising.
Let's not put the champagne on ice just yet, but it's time to genuinely contemplate the sweet sensation of winning basketball. If the Warriors continue their improvement and make the playoffs this year, you can look back at the November 25 game against Utah as the turning point in the season.