Stephen Curry‘s frustration has reached its boiling point as the Golden State Warriors suffered another embarrassing home defeat against a visiting team missing its top star.
Curry slammed the chair during a second-quarter timeout and could only shake his head after the Jimmy Butler-less Miami Heat took a 42-29 lead.
The Heat steamrolled the Warriors 114-98 on Tuesday, January 7, with Curry again carrying the much of the team’s offensive load.
Curry finished with 31 points 11-of-22 shooting night and made eight 3-pointers. But the rest of the Warriors only combined for 67 points on 38% shooting.
“I honestly have no idea,” Curry told reporters when asked how the Warriors can fix their struggling offense, which failed to generate at least 100 points in their last four losses. “We’ll try to figure it out. But I don’t have answer right now.”
On January 5, the Sacramento Kings, who played without De’Aaron Fox, smothered the Warriors 129-99.
“Back-to-back no-shows pretty much,” Curry told reporters. “The hard part is these are winnable games against teams that, for whatever reason, are around the same place in the standings.”
The Warriors moved down to 10th place in the Western Conference with 18-18 record after losing 15 of their last 21 games. They only have a half-game lead over the Kings, who improved to 18-19 on the strength of a 5-1 turnaround with interim coach Doug Christie, who replaced Mike Brown.
Poor Offense Leading to Bad Defense
Curry points to their offensive struggles as the culprit of their bad defense.
“We have nothing to show for it, nothing really to latch onto like ‘Oh, we’re doing this great if we can only…’ It seems like both sides of the ball are struggling,” Curry continued. “They’re probably connected.
“If you make shots, usually your confidence goes up; your belief that you can win the game goes up. It helps you play defense. Once you lose that spirit, it’s glaring how bad we can be at times.”
The Heat shot 47% from the field and 40% from the 3-point line. They also had more free throws (12-16) than the Warriors (4-5).
Golden State felt Jonathan Kuminga‘s absence as there was nobody who can break down the Heat’s defense and earn points at the free throw line.
Kuminga is out for at least three weeks with a severe sprained ankle, which gives the Warriors more dilemma as the February 6 trade deadline is fast approaching.
Steve Kerr Can See Stephen Curry’s Frustrations
Curry’s frustration was pretty obvious. He couldn’t hide it.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr saw it first-hand.
“I can see it,” Kerr told reporters. “I can see it with Steph. He’s continued to be brilliant night after night but at his core, he’s a winner, he’s a champion, he wants to compete at the highest level. We just saw it a few months ago in Paris. The best of the best. He takes over the fourth quarter when everything’s on the line.
“That’s who he is, that’s what he lives for. So he is really struggling with the emotion of (the team) not being competitive right now. He probably hasn’t had to deal with this since his, I don’t know, his first couple years in the league. He’s definitely struggling with it.”
Curry’s outward show of his frustrations and Kerr’s comments are obvious pleas for help.
Mike Dunleavy Jr. and the Warriors front office have their work cut out for them with the NBA trade deadline less than a month away.
Curry is likely to skip again one of the Warriors’ back-to-back games in Detroit and Indiana on January 9 and 10 due to load management. Another losing streak could keep them out of the top 10 in the West.
