But 6 points, a -26, and a blown 3 from “his spot” that could have tied things late from Dorrell Wright? And all negative +/- from the starters, and all positive from the supposedly worthless bench? Well, you can’t say the Warriors aren’t finding new ways to lose.

There was one bright spot at least in the play of Reggie Williams. Dude was money from deep in the second half, and almost single-handedly kept the Warriors in the game. He’s been much more consistent of late, and if he could ever learn to become a 2-way player — and with his length, there’s no reason he can’t — he might finally turn the corner from good to, well, really good, at least.

But that was about it. Now the road trip continues, and you have to expect that the Warriors downward skid in the standings will continue right with it.

Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

The Warriors finished the first half of the season in style, with a last minute winner from Monta to cap off a sensational 36-point night. While there’s certainly a bit to complain about with this game — Curry’s horrible foul at the end, and the bigs getting beat handily on the boards — at the end of the day they got the win they needed.

Outside of Monta’s big shot, the story of the night was Brandon Wright’s big contribution off the bench. On a night when the team got very little production outside of the starters (as opposed to Indiana, which had all double-digit positive +/-’s off the bench, and the complete opposite from their starters), Wright’s 6 points and 4 rebounds in 12 4th quarter minutes was sorely needed. Granted, this was one of the few matchups where he can be useful (Jeff Foster is about as big of an offensive threat as he can guard), but you gotta give him credit for taking advantage of the opportunity.

Aside from the late foul, Curry was very active as a distributor, dishing out 7 assists against 1 turnover. He lead the team with a +17, though the offensive is still coming along a bit slowly.

Wright continues to put up solid numbers, filling the stat sheet with 21 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocks. And David Lee continued his recent run with 21 and 9 — he still can’t seem to get a double double, but he’s coming about as close as you can get.

So the Warriors finish the first half at 18-23, a 36-win pace that would represent an improvement over last year but still leave them well short of the playoffs. At the very least, it would be nice to see this team make a run to .500. I think it will take a trade to get there, as they’ll likely run out of gas once the easy stretch ends and they head back out on the road unless they get an infusion of new talent. Who knows — maybe Wright’s performance tonight can help make that happen.

• Play like the better team. The most disappointing thing about Monday’s game was how unnecessarily close it was. The Warriors were clearly the better side, but every time they threatened to break the game open they’d give up a run to the Nets. The Pacers are certainly a better team than New Jersey, but the Warriors should be able to own the matchup against a slumping team on the road — they just need to avoid playing down to their competition.
• Shoot the damn ball. Even during their current rough stretch, the Pacers are holding their opponents to 91 points per game on 40.7% shooting. The Warriors have been shooting the ball well recently, particularly from 3, but they’ll need to keep that up tonight if they want to avoid a similar slog to what we saw against the Nets on Monday.
• Get Curry Hot. It’s no secret that Curry has struggled of late, particularly on the defensive end. Can he avoid the early fouls that have prevented him from getting into the early offensive flow, the most recent Clippers game excepted? His Assists to Turnovers ratio has been better of late, but that seems to have come from an overabundance of caution when it comes to aggressiveness. Can he find a happy medium?