The Golden State Warriors are playing like a lottery team, and it’s taking a toll on their best player.
Following a 12-3 start, the Warriors have dropped to .500 as they head to Detroit to face the Pistons on Thursday night.
The Warriors are coming off two home losses in which they failed to reach the 100-point mark, falling 129-99 to Sacramento on Sunday and 114-98 to Miami on Tuesday.
Stephen Curry scored 31 points against the Heat but got little support from his teammates. He shot 50 percent from the field while the rest of the group made 38.1 percent of their attempts.
“I can see it with Steph. He’s continued to be brilliant night-after-night, but at his core, he’s a winner, he’s a champion, he wants to compete at the highest level,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “We just saw it a few months ago in Paris (for the Olympics). The best of the best. He takes over the fourth quarter when everything’s on the line. That’s who he is, that’s what he lives for.
“So he is really struggling with the emotion of (the team) not being competitive right now. He probably hasn’t had to deal with this since his, I don’t know, his first couple years in the league. He’s definitely struggling with it.”
Curry called the last two games “back-to-back no-shows” and acknowledges the team is foundering.
“Seems like both sides of the ball are struggling,” he said. “They’re probably connected. If you make shots, usually your confidence goes up; your belief that you can win the game goes up. It helps you play defense. Once you lose that spirit it’s glaring how bad we can be at times.”
Curry is averaging a team-high 22.8 points a game. The Warriors’ second-leading scorer, Jonathan Kuminga (16.8), isn’t available to ease some of the burden off Curry. Kuminga is sidelined indefinitely with a right ankle sprain.
The Pistons are headed in the opposite direction. They moved one game above .500 with their fifth straight victory on Wednesday, rolling past the depleted Brooklyn Nets, 113-98.
Franchise player Cade Cunningham had a quiet night with 13 points and five assists in 24 minutes, but Malik Beasley and two reserves picked up the scoring slack. Beasley had 23 points, Simone Fontecchio 17 and Marcus Sasser 15.
By pulling away in the third quarter, the Pistons were able to hold down the minutes of their regulars. Beasley was the only starter who played more than 26 minutes.
First-year coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who was fired by Cleveland after last season despite winning a playoff series, has gotten his team to put together consistent performances. He gives the credit back to his players.
“They are a good group of guys to be around every single day, and from the day I got the job here, the first conversations, they embraced me with open arms,” he said. “That made my job easier. They want to learn, they want to be successful, they want to get better.
“It’s more a credit to them and what they’ve been open to than it is anything that I’ve done. I just enjoy working with them every single day, and we’re having a great time doing it.”
The Pistons finished a league-worst 14-68 last season.
–Field Level Media
