BY: Andrew Edwards
There’s something seriously wrong with the Golden State Warriors.
Dating back to the beginning of this season, the Warriors have seemed to play their most lackluster, uninspired basketball since the acquisition of Kevin Durant. Still, being the one seed on the west does not hurt. They will have home court advantage all the way through the playoffs unless they play the Bucks or Raptors in the finals. All this being said, the Warriors just blew a 31 point lead on Monday night to a Clippers team that had no business competing with the two-time champions.
“The mood’s s—,” Warriors backup center Andrew Bogut said. “And that’s actually a positive sign in my opinion. It wasn’t something where we were like, ‘Oh we’ll get them next time.’ We’re genuinely pissed off about it.”
How did the Warriors get to this point? The key explanation could certainly point to the loss of center DeMarcus Cousins in the first half of the game Monday night. It seemed to take the energy out of not only the players but also for the fans of the Warriors. To make it even worse, it seems as if the injury to Cousins is going to be season-ending.
“There’s a pretty significant quad injury,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after the game. “We’ll get an MRI [on Tuesday], but he’s going to out for – I’ll just say a while because I think it’s unclear right now for how long he’ll be out. It’s significant.”
Can the Warriors still win the title and complete the first three-peat since the Kobe and Shaq Los Angeles Lakers? Of course they can. They’ve done it before, and they can do it again. But they have to start playing better team ball and not let their emotions get in the way, such as Kevin Durant’s ejection late in game one of the series.
The Warriors are still the team to beat, but something seems a little bit off as opposed to the previous years. This team is chasing history, and if they want to finish the job then it’s time to fully activate playoff mode.
