The Golden State Warriors’ honeymoon start came to a crashing halt on Friday as the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers handed them a 136-117 spanking that wasn’t nearly as close as the 19-point margin would indicate. The Warriors were down 20-3 before they could blink and trailed by as many as 41 points. This thing was over before it started.
It was bound to happen. The Warriors are not as good as their 7-2 record to start the season suggests. They’re deep. They defend. Stephen Curry is still Stephen Curry. But there are so many guys playing so close to, if not over, their high-water mark that collectively it just isn’t sustainable.
Seriously, how long is Buddy Hield going to keep shooting 50% on nine 3s per game? What about Moses Moody at 48% or Draymond Green at 43%? Is Lindy Waters III this good? How long were they going to keep playing poorly early in games and just be able to turn it around? Is the defense really this stout? When it’s not creating turnovers, it is individually vulnerable in various places, even if it’s collectively connected.
Friday night was a little reality check. Warriors play-by-play commentator Bob Fitzgerald couldn’t stop framing the Cavs’ incendiary 3-point shooting as just one of those nights, as if to say there was nothing any team — the Warriors or otherwise — could have done about it. That’s just not true.
Yes, Cleveland was raining 3s. They made 20 of them at a 54% clip. A few of them were contested makes of the tip-your-hat variety (Ty Jerome was pulling up in transition from the logo for crying out loud), but the majority were the product of the Warriors not being able to keep Cleveland’s creators in front and having to scramble around to chase the ball movement as a result.
On the offensive end, Golden State couldn’t get anything going. Cleveland’s defense is no joke, and the Warriors’ creators couldn’t generate any sort of advantage. On the few occasions they did get downhill, the Cavs closed passing lanes and defended the rim with their size. It was a mismatch from the opening jump.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr took at least some of the blame, saying, “I didn’t feel like I did a great job the last two days of getting the guys ready to play.” For what it’s worth, Kerr did like the way the team kept fighting in the second half after trailing by 41 at the break.
“There’s going to be games in the 82 [game schedule] where things don’t go your way and you have to show where you are,” Kerr said. “I was impressed with the guys’ energy and the way they kept playing. And that’s important to establish.”
It remains to be seen if Cleveland is actually as good as its 10-0 record to start the season, and the Warriors surely aren’t as bad as they looked on Friday. But it is the sort of reminder a team like Golden State needs. They’re good, but they’re not that good. The margin for error remains extremely small against the better teams and on Friday they saw what can happen when they don’t bring their best stuff.
