The third time wasn’t the charm for the Warriors on Friday night against the LA Clippers, as they lost 102-92 at Intuit Dome.
The Warriors now have played the Clippers three times this season and have lost all three games.
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Without Steph Curry and Draymond Green, the Warriors couldn’t generate any offense most of the night. They scored 21 points in the first quarter, 22 in the second and 19 in the third before exploding for 30 in the fourth.
Jonathan Kuminga did show up offensively. All night long, he dominated around the rim, leading to a career-high 34 points. He was extremely efficient, going 11 of 19 from the field, with most of his points coming in the paint. He also made a career-high 11 free throws, missing just three times at the charity stripe.
Kuminga SOARS for the slam ✈️ pic.twitter.com/FhU80QpseH
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) December 28, 2024
If only others around Kuminga could say the same. The Warriors battled until the very end, trailing by as many as 21 points and 19 going into the fourth quarter, though it simply wasn’t enough short-handed on the first night of a back-to-back.
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After starting the season 12-3, the Warriors now have gone 3-12 in their last 15 games.
Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ latest loss, dropping them to 15-15 on the season.
Kuminga Came Ready
Before Friday night, the Warriors had been without Curry and Green once this season. The result was a six-point win against the Houston Rockets on Dec. 5 where Kuminga had perhaps the best game of his young career.
Kuminga in that contest started at power forward and played 33 minutes. He scored a then-career-high 33 points on 13-of-22 shooting, grabbed seven rebounds and was a plus-7. Starting him with Green and Curry out again Friday night in LA seemed likely, yet Steve Kerr went a different way. Instead, Kerr started Kyle Anderson at power forward to play the Green role as a point-forward and kept Kuminga off the bench.
And Kuminga answered his coach’s challenge, playing aggressively under control, using movement to get easy buckets. Despite coming off the bench, he was the Warriors’ leading scorer after the first quarter with five points and led both teams with 13 points at halftime on 4-of-8 shooting and made all four of his free throws. Through three quarters, Kuminga was up to 19 points, but no other Warrior was in double figures.
Kuminga has a career-high 34 points🙌 pic.twitter.com/pa4OWIA1aS
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) December 28, 2024
Kuminga now has scored at least 25 points in two of his last three games, and has nine 20-point games this season.
Kuminga also had 10 rebounds and five assists, marking the first 30-10-5 game of his four-year NBA career.
Put JK in the dunk contest 😤 pic.twitter.com/CXpdIJ4M8q
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) December 28, 2024
Schroder Keeps Struggling
The Dennis Schroder the Warriors acquired from the Brooklyn Nets has not been the same player since changing his number and wearing different colors. His shooting woes continued at the worst possible time.
A game without Curry should have been an invitation for Schroder to have the ball in his hands and take over. It was not. Kerr did get the ball in Schroder’s control, but he just kept falling short.
Literally. Schroder scored seven points on 3-of-11 shooting and missed all six of his 3-pointers, giving him four single-digit scoring nights in his five games as a Warrior. He seems to be short on everything right now. That’s not something to blame on Kerr. The coach ran pick-and-roll time and time again for Schroder, but nothing could get him going.
Schröder’s save sets up a Buddy dunk 🙌 pic.twitter.com/2MrCmgajE3
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) December 28, 2024
In 23 games with the Nets this season, Schroder was 45.2 percent from the field and 38.7 percent from three. Now in five games as a Warrior, Schroder has made a lowly 28 percent of his shots overall (14 of 50) and is shooting 17.4 percent from 3-point range (4 of 23).
Wiggins? Buddy? Hello?
Schroder was far from the only reason the Warriors’ offense was the puke emoji in human form. Whenever the Warriors don’t have Curry on the court, everybody else has to step up. So much for that.
Andrew Wiggins gave Golden State nothing offensively, and neither did Buddy Hield.
The Warriors’ second-best 3-point shooter, Hield, took six threes and was successful just once. Hield’s nine rebounds were a season-high, but that’s not what he’s here to do. His No. 1 job is to score points and hit threes, which he didn’t do much of in Inglewood.
Hield scored five points on 2-of-8 shooting in 22 minutes. Somehow, he was better than Wiggins.
Golden State’s second-leading scorer coming into the game behind only Curry totaled five points as well. Wiggins was 1 of 3 from deep, and made just one of his eight 2-pointers as well. His five points are tied for a season-low.
The reeling Warriors have to learn how to win with and without Curry right now. The main players who should be able to step up in his absence were no shows.
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