Warriors enter 2025 in desperate need of answers amid recent skid

Warriors enter 2025 in desperate need of answers amid recent skid originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO – Instead of champagne bottles, shot glasses and celebratory hats, when the ball drops and the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, the Warriors need to be as creative as their offense once was to ring in the start of 2025.

Can Golden State scour the garden for a four-leaf clover? Will a rabbit’s foot appear out of thin air? Would burning box scores of the Warriors’ most miserable losses bring them good fortune?

Whichever route the Warriors must go, something has to change after yet another atrocious loss at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Warriors led by one point Monday night after the first quarter, a mirage of what was to come in their 113-95 loss on Monday at Chase Center. Neither team could buy a bucket at the start of the second quarter. Andrew Wiggins, four and a half minutes into the quarter, ended the scoreless drought on a floater. But the Warriors only scored nine more points the entire rest of the quarter.

It’s not like the Cavs were great in those 12 minutes, scoring just 20 points themselves. However, 11 points for a quarter in a NBA game for a team that has Steph Curry feels comical. Those 11 points were a season-low in any quarter for the Warriors, and though their offense improved the entirety of the game did not for the home team.

They took 24 shots in the second quarter and made four. None of their eight 3-point attempts trickled through the net. How the second half started, not how the first half ended, was the turning point.

A Trayce Jackson-Davis And-1 three-point play cut the Warriors’ deficit to five points within the first minute of the third quarter. And then, the onslaught began. On three straight Cavs offensive possessions, Donovan Mitchell drained a 3-pointer as the Warriors couldn’t make a shot. Evan Mobley’s three officially made it a 12-0 run by Cleveland in the first two and a half minutes of the second half, putting Golden State in a 17-point hole they never came close to digging out of.

“The key stretch of the game was Mitchell’s three threes to start the third,” Steve Kerr said. “I think we scored first and then they scored 12 in a row and broke it open.”

With three and a half minutes remaining in the third quarter, the Warriors trailed by 26 points on the way to an 18-point loss. The blowout wiped away the good feelings of the Warriors’ impressive, gritty win against the Devin Booker-less Phoenix Suns from two nights prior, and placed them at 16-16 going into the new year.

Steph Curry went fully online summing up what the Warriors are after such an encouraging start to the season.

“As the kids say, we’re very mid right now,” Curry said. “We’re just very average.”

The Warriors opened eyes and struck fear back into the league with their blistering 12-3 start. New additions appeared to be perfect role players. Curry didn’t have to be a superhero for the Warriors to at least appear to be a team that can contend. Draymond Green was playing like a Defensive Player of the Year.

Winning cures all, but it also can mask many flaws in small sample sizes. The Cavs, a team that always is going to be a terrible matchup for the Warriors with their combination of size, length, athleticism and scoring prowess, have now beaten them by 19 and 18 points, but led by 41 in their first matchup and 26 Monday night.

There have been a handful of losses to inferior teams, and a number of games where Golden State gave it away down the stretch. A 12-3 start to the season gave numerous reasons for optimism. Going 4-13 since has everyone wondering what’s going on.

“You are what your record says you are,” Kerr said. “I think Bill Parcells said that, and I think there’s a lot of truth to that. We’ve obviously fallen from that early start where we had a lot of momentum and a lot of good flow to our game.

“I know, because I’ve seen it – the way we started – I know it’s in us and I know we can get there. But right now, it’s a struggle for sure.”

At the exact moment the Warriors could make a move, they went out and acquired Dennis Schröder from the Brooklyn Nets on Dec. 14. They’ve gone 2-5 since and Schroder has looked like a shell of the version that was thriving in Brooklyn.

Not only did the Warriors end the 2024 portion of their season as a .500 team, they’re currently the No. 10 seed in the Western Conference as the last play-in tournament team. Like Kerr, Curry isn’t losing faith. Simultaneously, the Warriors are 2.5 games back of getting out of the play-in tournament and 3.5 from being a top-four seed in the West.

Being content in the current product can’t be the answer. Curry knows an immediate sense of urgency must be felt from the top on down.

“I think we understand that better days can be ahead,” Curry said. “You’re not in that big of hole in the Western Conference, if you look at the standings. You go on a five, six-game run, and to us that sounds like a lot, but it is the numbers. You can make up a lot of ground pretty quickly.

“It’s a tough task, but that fine line between losing hope and confidence, and understanding one good week and you’re kind of back in, that’s where we are.”

Mid. The perfect opportunity to change the tides and embrace what 2025 will bring, or watch the waves crash every hope into the sand as Curry’s 37th birthday comes closer and closer.

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