The Grizzlies ate the Warriors up inside, and didn’t even need a big rebounding advantage to do it. They scored 74 points in the paint, and only took four 3′s (the Warriors shot 21 times from behind the arc — and only made 6).

Tonight it was Curry who lost his shooting stroke, putting up a Monta-esque 2-14 from the field and a so-so 9 points and 6 turnovers — one more turnover than the entire Memphis team combined.

Thus ends the short road trip, as the Warriors get a few days off before a home date with Dallas on Saturday.

Photo by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images

The Warriors waste a career night from Biedrins and, more important, a great opportunity to steal one on the road before Lee comes back tonight. They shot 49% from the field, outrebound the Grizzlies 44-33, held Randolph and Gasol in check, and were even close in terms of foul shots with 23 attempts to the Grizzlies 29. But when it really mattered at the end, huge turnovers and missed shots pushed the losing streak to five games.

Dorell Wright was the goat in this one, as he missed two huge shots near the end — one a botched attempt to pick up a foul, the other a wide-open 3 with the game on the line. Let’s hope he bounces back like he did the last time he had a wretched game…3 games ago. After a great start to the season, games like this make you wonder if there was a reason why Wright never got a chance to play big minutes until this year.

Back to Biedrins, he was an absolute beast around the rim tonight. Perhaps most impressive was how smoothly he moved around the rim, taking a single dribble when needed to get in better position for a layup. That’s something we never would have seen from him a few years ago, and combined with his improved set of post moves from about 8-10 feet he might be using enhanced skills to make up for any lessened quickness compared to his earlier days.

The controversy du jour from tonight’s game was Smart’s 4th quarter decisions with regard to the bench: both Monta and Steph were kept out of the first five minutes of the quarter, and while the reserves didn’t do too bad as the deficit only grew from 5 to 8, as Steinmetz pointed out on the post-game show that stretch was the perfect opportunity to close the gap with the Memphis starters on the bench (Smart was planning to bring them in a bit earlier but there wasn’t a dead ball for several minutes). The decision to pull Curry after two bad plays and leave him on the bench until the 2-minute mark was also odd, and raises some questions about Smart’s coaching skills.

I thought this exchange from the Chronicle writeup was a big strange:

“I had two possessions when I was rusty. I’ve got to learn to ease my way back into a game when I sit that long,” said Curry, who had 26 points.

“I don’t buy that out-of-rhythm stuff. That’s a cop-out by ballplayers,” Smart said. “When I played, we were ready to play at any time.”

Silver linings? Jeff Adrien had a breakout game with 12 points (on 6-11 shooting), 8 rebounds, and a team-high +6 in over 30 minutes. Adrien still has flaws — the Grizzlies got a lot of easy inside baskets in this game — but until Amundson is back, he needs to jump over Gadzuric and Radmonovic in the front-court rotation.

Speaking of those two fools, Gaszuric managed a -15 in only 8 minutes of action last night. Radmonovic was slightly better and even hit a three, but his behind-the-back pass to the Grizzlies’ bench near the end of the game was a killer. The rest of the bench was similarly worthless: Carney in particular was extremely disappointing after a few solid games in a row; Lin was ok defensively but went 0-4 from the field with all four shots being blocked; and Reggie Williams played a largely forgettable 17 minutes with only 7 points.

And O.J. Mayo going for 23 off the bench? I guess no one read my game preview…

So now it’s on to Minnesota for a must-win game on the back end of a back-to-back. At least David Lee will be waiting for them when they get there — now we get to see how much the recent slide has been his absence and how much is just a tougher schedule exposing the Warriors’ flaws.

Reggie Williams did a nice job filling in for Curry, coming off the bench to score 16 points with 9 assists. And David Lee had a nice comeback game with 15 points and 16 rebounds.

Biedrins was fairly quiet statistically, though his lone bucket was a good one.

In terms of rebounds, the Warriors were back on top in the rebounding battle, with 48 to the Grizzlies 39. So far this season, winning the rebounding battle has 1.0 correlation with winning the game.

Nice win overall, especially with a road trip coming up. They proved they can win without Curry, and did a nice job responding to Memphis’ runs throughout the game (the late third quarter excepted).

• Return of Lee. Anything would be better than what he put in against the Lakers, but Memphis’ front line has pretty good size (though Zach Randolph is out). I’d like to see him silence any doubters and go right back to putting up double-doubles every night.
• Replacing Curry. Lin had 15 solid minutes at the Lakers, but can he really be relied on? I much prefer Monta off the ball, and thought Williams did well in that final preseason game. Will be interesting to see what happens here.
• Rebounding. The Lakers game was the first where the Warriors were out-rebounded, and also the first they lost. Will this relationship continue?