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In their first two games of the season, the Warriors hadn’t spent more than a minute without either Steph Curry or Jimmy Butler on the floor.
But with 9:21 left in the fourth quarter on Friday night, both stars plopped down on the visitors’ bench in the Moda Center. Head coach Steve Kerr had given them a chance to cut into Portland’s double-digit lead, but yanked them out after they couldn’t make a surge to start the fourth.
At that point, the Warriors trailed by 18. A minute later, Kerr emptied his bench, going with a lineup of Pat Spencer, Brandin Podziemski, Will Richard, Moses Moody, and Gui Santos.
Friday was the Warriors’ first back-to-back of the season, and they displayed how they’ll approach them. The 39-year-old Al Horford won’t play in both games; which one he suits up for will likely depend on matchups. Kerr will take a look at both Quinten Post and Trayce Jackson-Davis in his stead, and might tinker with more unconventional lineup combinations.
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The Warriors will try to win, to be sure. All three of Curry, Butler, and Draymond Green played against the Blazers. But if they fall behind — like they did against Portland — or pull significantly ahead, it’ll be easy for Kerr to pull the plug and give the team’s aging veterans reduced work loads.
Like the organization’s approach to team-building, the Warriors will treat back-to-back situations with both a win-now mentality and a certain amount of pragmatism. They want to keep the big picture in mind, and unnecessarily overworking their tricenarians doesn’t track with Golden State’s goal of having its core healthy for the spring.
No Warrior played 30 minutes on Friday. Curry, Butler, and Green logged 27, 27, and 21, respectively. Had Golden State (2-1) played the Blazers tougher, that would’ve been different. But turnovers and hot Portland shooting handed the Warriors their first loss of the season, 139-119.
“Tough night, but a really good week,” Kerr told reporters postgame. “To go 2-1 with three games in four nights in three different cities, I’ll take it. But we’ve got to learn from this and do a much better job handling that kind of pressure.”
The Warriors played 11 players in the first quarter and 12 in the first half — including Moses Moody, who made his season debut after missing the first two gameswith a minor calf issue. Kerr slightly expanding his rotation on the second night of a back-to-back makes sense given the incentive to give aging stars a little more time off their feet.
But the Warriors still played their regulars normal minutes in the first half. Curry played 17, Butler logged 16, and Green registered 14 first-half minutes — all in line with where they’d traditionally be. The Warriors were certainly playing to win.
Yet Portland was on fire. Tiago Splitter served as interim head coach after Chauncey Billups was arrested on Thursday morning as part of an FBI sports gambling probe.
The Blazers didn’t miss a beat amid the serious turmoil. They hit nine of their 11 3-pointers in the second quarter to build a double-digit lead. Golden State’s communication on guard-to-guard action was poor, allowing the Blazers either open shots on the perimeter or clear driving lanes to the rim. The Warriors also had multiple lapses in transition defensively, perhaps a sign of heavy legs.
This young and athletic Blazers team plays fast. Portland took advantage of 25 Warriors turnovers; Golden State only coughed the ball up nine times in an overtime game the night before.
Both the Blazers and Nuggets shot over 50% from the field against the Warriors. Fatigue almost certainly contributed to the defensive shortcomings in Portland. Deni Avdija poured in 26 points, Jerami Grant scored 22 off the bench and Toumani Camara — a consistent Warriors thorn — added 19.
Jonathan Kuminga (16 points, eight rebounds, three assists, two steals) posterized center Donovan Clingan and strung together his third straight impressive game, but Golden State’s other young players struggled. On the second night of back-to-backs, the baby Warriors should be expected to pick up some slack. Instead, Podziemski shot 2-for-9 and recorded a -17 plus-minus, Post logged a subdued 16 minutes and Moody only got going when the game was out of hand.
The Warriors have 11 more back-to-backs on their schedule, and they’re not going to get 35 points from Curry — on 12-for-22 shooting — in all of them.
Their next comes early next week, with the Grizzlies and Clippers playing at Chase Center on Monday and Tuesday. Having five games in eight nights to start the season isn’t ideal, but the Warriors would probably have that brand of tough scheduling early in the season rather than in the thick of a playoff push.
And they might be relieved that neither of those opponents are the plucky Blazers.
“I think the NBA schedule is — everybody deals with whatever comes your way and there’s a lot of difficult moments in the schedule,” Kerr said. “But tonight was not about that, it was about Portland and what they’ve built. The length, the athleticism, and the style of play. They were brilliant. I’d be embarrassed to sit here and blame fatigue when a team just came out and took it to us. It was about them and their great play.”