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OKLAHOMA CITY — After trading for Jimmy Butler last season, the Warriors ripped through a 23-8 finish to their season and genuinely looked like they could hang with anyone in the league — even the Thunder, who went on to win the 2024-25 championship.

They have more or less the same cast of characters now. But, at the moment, they’re not the same team. 

After getting drubbed by the defending champion Thunder, 126-102, Draymond Green put his thumb on why. 

“I think everyone was committed to winning and doing that any way possible,” Green said. “Right now, it doesn’t feel that way.”

It’s easy to say something like that after falling behind by as much as 36 in a demolition. The Thunder fried Golden State, making the Warriors even more disconnected, identity-less, and lackadaisical than they might be. 

The glaring comment represents a frustration with the Warriors’ ongoing slide. They’re 6-6 on the season and have lost six straight road games amid a brutal schedule that includes a back-to-back in each of the first five weeks. They’ve already questioned their competitive fire and energy. And young players Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski haven’t yet been able to lift up the team’s aging veterans on nights they’re unavailable, fatigued, or ineffective. 

“Obviously, when you lose you start to look around to figure out what’s the issue,” Steph Curry said. “Commitment to winning is just running the floor, rebounding, taking care of the basketball. It’s not really about shots going in or out. We haven’t done that consistently enough, and our record shows that.” 

Curry, who returned on Tuesday after missing the prior three games with an illness, didn’t look like himself after an energetic start and was still noticeably congested at his locker postgame. He noted that the vibes are high, but the team needs to find the type of “winning plays” that don’t show up on the stat sheet.

Winning plays come when everyone is playing with energy, starring in their own role and sacrificing for others. All things the Thunder do on a nightly basis. 

Down Jalen Williams, Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins, and other role players, the Thunder exposed the Warriors’ disconnection. The Thunder’s guard-to-guard actions — the type of plays that have given the Warriors issues all year — gave perimeter players driving lanes to the rim. They scored 27 points off 21 Warriors turnovers (Trayce Jackson-Davis committed five in his first nine minutes, Kunminga coughed up five, and Green added three more). Their twin bigs Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein kept the Warriors off the offensive glass with ease. The rangy Thunder were a step faster than Golden State all night, as evidenced by early foul trouble from Curry, Green, and Podziemski. 

The blowout loss wasn’t a wake-up call for the Warriors. They’ve been slipping since their Midwest trip to Milwaukee and Indiana. Head coach Steve Kerr said things haven’t felt right since then; the team is 2-5 in that stretch, halting the momentum it built in the opening week.

But the Oklahoma City game was certainly indicative of the Warriors’ issues. The Thunder aren’t a measuring stick just because they’re the defending champions. The 11-1 squad punishes teams for their mistakes, making foibles look more glaring than a typical team might. 

They put teams’ flaws on display. And the Warriors’ flaws were alarming.

Trailing by just one point halfway through the first quarter, Kuminga drove at Holmgren and powered up to the rim for a layup. He thought he got fouled, and was slow to get up from the hardwood as Holmgren ignited a fast break. 

Kuminga jogged back on defense, allowing Jaylin Williams to step into a rhythm 3-pointer. 

Kerr constantly preaches about first steps during a change of possession; if the Warriors get the ball, everyone’s supposed to sprint up the court, and vice versa if they lose the ball. When a first step is slow getting back on defense, the Warriors’ opponent can get a 5-on-4 opportunities. 

The Thunder make you pay for a 5-on-4 gift. 

Taking a strong first-step back comes down to simple effort. But that’s not the Warriors’ only issue. They also need to communicate better.

The Warriors are back in their shell after a Holmgren rebound and Butler picks him up as he crosses halfcourt. But behind him, neither Green nor Quinten Post are sure about who’s supposed to mark Hartenstein filling his lane down the middle. 

Both bigs gravitate toward the Thunder center, leaving Alex Caruso wide open for a corner 3. 

The Warriors haven’t been on a string defensively, in transition or otherwise. In the halfcourt, they need to be better at helping the helper and just generally playing weak-side defense. Closeouts to the 3-point arc have been too lazy, forcing Green to put out too many fires in the paint.

As Butler said postgame, “everybody has to be honest with themselves” and play more dedicated defensively.

“I just don’t think the fight’s always there,” Butler said. “If we’re not making shots, I don’t know, it gives us an out to not guard. Whatever reason that may be. We’ve got to fight no matter what. I think most of that fight I’m talking about is on the defensive end. We’re not getting stops, maybe we’re not playing hard. Just not doing whatever it takes to win.” 

When the Warriors surged to the postseason last year, they did so by taking care of the ball, crashing the offensive glass and getting to the foul line. 

“We’re not doing any of those things right now,” Kerr said. 

Including Tuesday, the Warriors are averaging 19.2 turnovers in their six losses. That figure would lead the league. 

The most avoidable ones seem to crop up in losses — the behind-the-backs into the first row, the one-handed passes to the other team, the overdribbling. 

Here are some examples.

These plays need no explanation, no intricate breakdown. They just can’t happen. 

Kerr and the coaching staff are at the point where they’re evaluating everything when it comes to the rotation. 

Gary Payton II has ceded his role to rookie Will Richard. Marksman Buddy Hield is shooting 31.2% from deep. Kuminga, playing more minutes than ever, has regressed after doing everything right in his first five games. Podziemski has started slow on both ends just like he did last year. 

Kerr likes Post next to Green in the starting lineup, which suggests the next tweak could come at Kuminga’s expense. Coal mine, meet canary. 

The trio of Kuminga, Butler, and Green has been much more productive this year than last, but spacing concerns remain. Moses Moody and Richard are the team’s most consistent 3-and-D wings. 

If the Warriors continue to slump, Moody replacing Kuminga in the starting lineup could be on the table. That’s probably how the Warriors were going to start the season anyway, but Moody’s preseason calf strain combined with Kuminga’s excellent first two weeks put a pin in it. 

Whichever moves Kerr makes will be designed to put more spacing and two-way players on the court together. The Thunder have the blueprint to that, with their conveyer belt of young, athletic wings. 

At one point on Tuesday, Kerr rolled out a lineup of Curry, Payton, Butler, Kuminga and Green. It was a “shooting be damned” effort at matching Oklahoma City’s athleticism. The desperation didn’t lead to a comeback.  

Oklahoma City is certainly committed to doing everything it takes to win games. After Green’s “committed to winning” statement, the veteran elaborated on what he meant. 

“Everyone has a personal agenda in this league, but you have to make the personal agenda work in the team confines. If it doesn’t work, then you’ve got to get rid of that agenda. Or, eventually, the agenda is the cause of someone getting rid of you.” 

Shifting around lineups will require unselfishness. The Thunder pushed the Warriors one step closer to reckoning with that.