SAN FRANCISCO – While everybody else was unwrapping Christmas gifts and gathering around the tree with family, Steph Curry was busy sending a message to his Warriors teammates before taking on the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday at Chase Center.
The message was clear and obvious for all ears to hear: This can go one way or this can go the other, so we have to figure this thing out.
Warriors second-year pro Trayce Jackson-Davis revealed the meeting was players-led during walkthrough and Curry was the most vocal. Everything Curry had to say, Jackson-Davis is fully aligned with.
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“He’s right,” Jackson-Davis said. “We’re at a point right now where you can either let go and drop a few more, or you get back on the horse and start winning.”
The Warriors won their first two games of the season in blowout fashion before losing by eight to the LA Clippers and then winning four straight. They began the season 12-3, looking like a refreshed group ready to remind the rest of the league they still can contend for a championship a few months after a franchise icon left for last season’s Western Conference champions.
Then everything came crashing down.
To end November and open December, the Warriors lost five straight games. Following their 115-113 loss to the Lakers on Wednesday, they’ve now lost 11 of their last 14 games, putting them at 15-14 overall and outside of the playoff picture.
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Andrew Wiggins wouldn’t further open the window into the Warriors’ players meeting, but as he did note, Curry knows when his voice needs to be heard. Though that didn’t result in a win hours later, the hope is it puts the appropriate pressure on a team searching and reeling to find its way.
“It is an inflection point on obviously which direction our season can go,” Curry said. “I think our last, whatever it is, 14 games, has just been tough trying to find any type of momentum or consistency and through that you just can't lose spirit, belief that we’re a good enough team to figure it out because this league is ruthless. … Right now we’re right in that window where we can still regain some momentum for the next however many weeks before the break are pivotal.
“Or else we’re in a situation where we’re chasing down the stretch and nobody wants to be there.”
From training camp in Hawaii to the Warriors’ perfect 6-0 preseason record, their strong start to the regular season and a few blips along the way, players and coaches have maintained morale is high.
The group still believes in one another. The locker room has a different vibe than last season. There admittedly have been some brutal losses already.
And Steve Kerr didn’t cloak where things stand right now.
“We’re down,” Kerr admitted. “Everybody’s disappointed. We’ve lost some confidence, you can feel it. We had a great vibe early in the season and we’re going through it right now. But I love our guys.
“High-character guys. They care. They care about the game, they care about each other. I believe in them. I believe we’re going to get this thing turned around. This is all part of it. It’s part of the season, part of life. You hit these ebbs and you feel like everything’s tough, everything’s difficult. You got to feel the flow, you got to feel the confidence. We’ll keep plugging away and we’ll get there.”
The incredibly tough stretch of the schedule the Warriors are in the midst of isn’t about to get easier. They have three games left in the calendar year, traveling to play the LA Clippers on Friday night, which is the first night of a back-to-back where they then face the Phoenix Suns on Saturday at Chase Center and close the year against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday at home.
After playing the Clippers in LA, they also begin a six-game homestand. There still are 53 regular season games remaining. Urgency also is being preached from the front office on down.
“I’m sure everybody has a different answer but I still have hope and faith and confidence that we can figure it out,” Curry said. “It’s how I’m built and I feel like you can go out there and talk about it, but how you execute, how you show up on a nightly basis, the effort we’re giving – even considering what our record has been over the last stretch, it’s a team that’s desperate trying to figure it out. It just hasn't gone our way.
“Until things change you have to keep that mentality.”