In the second half, the game regressed to the mean and the Warriors just looked awful. Miami clamped down on D and stiffled any flow left over from the first half, the Warriors’ turnover woes returned, Dwayne Wade started drawing fouls for getting breathed on while tomahawk chops on Ellis’ arms went uncalled, and the shots that went in during the first 24 minutes most certainly did not in the second. The Warriors scored less in the second half total than they did in either of the first two quarters.

It’s easy to blame the officiating, and they certainly deserve a lot of scorn — looking at the net stats above, the number that blares out is the -37 (!!!) on net free throw attempts. But Miami deserves credit for dictating the tempo in the second half, for driving and creating contact while the Warriors settled for jumpers, and for exerting tremendous energy on defense that was just as responsible for the Warriors’ scoring woes as the whistles were.

So what can the Warriors take out of this? First, if they play their game — and last night proves that their game is most certainly not a half-court motion offensive game — they can keep up with anyone. Who knows: if they weren’t on the back end of a back-to-back, maybe they would have had enough energy to keep it up just a bit longer and carry a big enough lead into the 4th to hang on.

Second, Dorell Wright has truly turned a corner. He’s been much more aggressive of late, and I think that really helps his outside shot as he’s able to do other things to get himself going if he’s missing from deep early. Before, his only response seemed to be to keep on firing from 3 or disappear completely.

Now they need to put it together for a full game against a quality opponent. Next up is the Magic on Monday, so let’s see if the Warriors can take the positive (perfect first half!) from this game instead of the negative (epic second half collapse!). Here’s where the reportedly awesome team chemistry could make a big difference…

But if they are able to steal this game, it will be because Dorell Wright has the homecoming game of his life (on both ends of the court), Curry goes on a white-hot shooting streak, Monta plays within himself and doesn’t force any action inside, and the Warriors bigs are able to hold their own inside and kept the rebounding margin close.

Who wants to take a bet that all that will happen?

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

The Warriors hung in this one for a while, but a dominant 3rd quarter behind LeBron blew things open and ended any hopes of an upset. It was obvious early on that the Warriors were going to have trouble scoring with Curry out, and eventually they just hit the wall. And, sadly, we didn’t even really get to see much of Udoh (though he did get to make his debut in garbage time).

The stats for this one are straight up ugly. The plus-minus numbers for the starters are just brutal, and the team got killed on the glass, killed in the paint, and killed on fast break points. Not exactly a winning formula!

Now the Warriors head to Utah for the final game of this brutal stretch (check the newly updated schedule page, which is now being powered by the database). While the schedule certainly explains this losing streak, it’s unfortunate that this team hasn’t been able to steal any of these games (and really only looked competitive in the Dallas and Phoenix games). Oh well — at least they have the Timberwolves coming up on Tuesday…



Udoh is clearly the draw on that front — while the Kawakami’s of the world are trashing the Warriors for yet another PR campaign, from all accounts the guy has been a standout presence while he’s been out and is turning heads now that he’s been practicing again. Should at least be fun to see a guy step into the Anthony Randolph “huge upside” role for the team if he can leap and block as well as has been reported.

As for Acie Law? Eh. They obviously need another body in the back court, especially with Curry likely out with his ankle, but it’s not like he lit the world on fire during his first tour of duty with the Warriors. Still, with the big guys back Adrien became expendable, and despite all the hustle he brought to the team the dude just couldn’t score consistently. Given how hard he played I do hope he catches on with another team and is able to put a solid role-player career together.

So on to the game tonight — while a win is still unlikely, it should be fun to see the “super team” in action, and it would be great to at least get something to feel hopeful about again.