The Golden State suffered its fourth straight loss Thursday night, this one to Orlando 130-129, dropping them to 3-6 on the season. The Warriors are 26th in the league in defense, they can’t stop fouling — opponents are getting 29.6 free throw attempts a game, most in the league — and the youth movement they leaned into for depth this season has fallen flat out of the gate.
The Warriors sound like a team that needs a win.
But they are thinking May and June, not early November, so on the second night of a back-to-back and the fifth game of a road trip, they will rest their core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green against the Pelicans Friday. Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area has the details.
If you think that will lead to a fine from the league, the Warriors have injuries for all of their stars.
We’re just two weeks into the season and the Warriors have been flat, something pretty common for teams that went to the Finals the season before. This was the season Joe Lacob’s master plan of “win now, win later” was going to start to transition to the Warriors’ young draft picks, but Jonathan Kuminga is out of the rotation, James Wiseman has been awful and Moses Moody is not better than the veterans on the roster (Wiseman and Moody combined for 21 minutes against the Magic — and Orlando’s bench dominated and was a key reason they won the game).
There are reasons to be positive for Warriors fans — Stephen Curry is playing at an MVP level so far, and their starting five remains as good as there is in the league (Curry, Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Green and Kevon Looney have a +24.1 net rating this season). Get the Warriors to the playoffs healthy and they are a threat to win it all.
But they may be doing it from a lower seed — the Warriors are already four games back of the Suns and it could be a long regular season for Golden State. They’re already playing the long game.
Here’s more on the Warriors
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Despite struggles Warriors play long game, will rest Curry, Thompson, Green Friday originally appeared on NBCSports.com