THE Warriors of the Golden State suffered a bad defeat on Sunday. A really, really, Really bad loss. An embarrassing loss. A pathetic loss. I’m sure you have publicly and privately said about 25 other adjectives and qualifiers for this loss, a bombardment of 52 points in the hands of the elite of the Eastern Conference, the Boston Celticswhich ended their eight-game road winning streak.
Bad losses happen. Hell, Really bad losses happen. Granted, that’s usually not the case – this was only the sixth time in franchise history that the organization lost by 50 points or more, with a 53-point loss to the Toronto Raptors as of 2021, this is the only other time this has happened in the last 50 years.
But stay. Bad losses happen, even for good teams.
The Warriors are still trying to prove they are a good team. A fantastic month of February won Steve Kerr Coach of the Month honors and put the Dubs squarely back in the playoff picture, looking like one of the best teams in the NBA. They’ll have to figure out how to maintain that, how to improve on it, and how to beat some very good Western Conference teams before even considering ways to beat the Celtics — the heavy favorites in the East — in a seven-game series. games.
They probably won’t. These are just probabilities. But maybe they will! This game, while succeeding in burning your eyes and making you think about the date of MLB’s Opening Day, failed to quickly eliminate the Warriors from the title or even the playoffs. It was just a nasty, horrible, no good match that everyone will soon try to forget.
Except the Celtics.
To prove that one bad game doesn’t have to doom the entire season, here are some embarrassing losses the Warriors have suffered in their recent four championship seasons.
December 23, 2014 @ Los Angeles Lakers: 115-105
Let’s start with a stretch. In the Warriors’ first championship season, they were so young, so fresh and so determined to prove they belonged that they showed up to almost every game. It’s been a season incredibly devoid of ugly losses, and you really can’t expect the core — now in their 30s, with their Hall of Fame spots locked up and the rings already filling 80 percent of a hand — reproduces itself.
So while this loss may not have been embarrassing, in itself it was extremely ugly and disturbing. The Dubs had taken the world by storm, off to a 23-3 start to the season. They were, like the Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder this year, a team that looked good in the standings, but with gigantic question marks over whether it was old enough, experienced enough and ready enough to win meaningful games.
At the end of December, it was the opportunity to prove that they were capable of it. They spent a vacation in Los Angeles, with an aperitif for a Lakers team that would finish 14th in the West with just 21 wins, followed by a highly publicized performance against the Clippers on Christmas Day.
Facing a Lakers team starting a formidable fivesome consisting of Ronnie Price, Wesley Johnson, Wayne Ellington, Jordan Hill and Ed Davis, the Dubs were destroyed and entered the fourth quarter trailing by 22 points before the garbage time team only makes things more respectable. Our headline for the match, which broke an 18-game winning streak in 19 games, read “The Warriors are on the verge of winning 69 games and somehow lose 105-115 to the Lakers“, with a more succinct subtitle: “C************ is coming.»
Two days later, they completely fell apart in the fourth quarter (sound familiar?), scoring just 16 points en route to a 14-point loss to the Clippers. The losses may not have been embarrassing, but they made you wonder if the Warriors were as good as you thought they were.
October 25, 2016 vs. San Antonio Spurs: 129-100
Now the Warriors were in a different place. They had won the 2015 championship and proved to be perennial contenders. The year before, they won an NBA-record 73 games in the regular season, and after losing a few points before repeating, they reloaded by adding one of the three best players in the world, Kevin Durant.
Before the season started, people were already speculating about how many games the Warriors would win… Could anyone really beat this team? After going 73-9 and then adding one of the greatest scorers in NBA history, tales of predestined dominance were being written left and right.
And then the Warriors forgot to show up for the very first game of the season, finding themselves completely dismantled in the first game against a Spurs team that was happy to spoil the fun little story of the NBA’s opening night.
November 4, 2016 @ Los Angeles Lakers: 117-97
Another bad loss to another bad Lakers team. The Warriors had bounced back from this terrible defeat at Spurs with four consecutive victories (including three away) by a total of 63 points. Any overreaction to the Spurs game was gone. You thought.
Then they visited a Lakers team that would win only 26 games, starting in hindsight a hilarious starting five of D’Angelo Russell (in his second year), Nick Young, Luol Deng, Julius Randle (in his third year) and Timofey Mozgov. They were quickly brought back to earth.
June 9, 2017 @ the Cleveland Cavaliers: 137-116
It was perhaps the least embarrassing 21-point loss a championship contender could suffer. It happened in Game 4 of the NBA Finalswith both teams already seeming aware that the Dubs would win the title.
But, still dealing with the demons of blowing a 3-1 lead to the same Cavs team a year before, the Dubs had the chance to achieve the unthinkable: a perfect 16-0 playoff run. Instead, they never showed up for the deciding match, leading to the “will they take a 3-0 lead now???” » stories slipped in and had to wait three days to complete the work.
January 30, 2018 at Utah Jazz: 129-99
The Warriors were still championship favorites at this point, but it was an ugly mark in an otherwise glorious season. While the Jazz were going to collapse at the end of the year, they were just 21-28 when this game started and took it against the Dubs all night.
Earlier in the month, Golden State lost by 19 at home to a decidedly mediocre Clippers team. A week after this defeat against the Jazz, they would lose by 20 points, at home, against the Thunder.
None of these losses seemed acceptable.
April 10, 2018 at Utah Jazz: 119-79
It was a scary game. The Warriors have been without Steph Curry for some time, and we’re trying to prove they can win without him ahead of a dangerous playoff slate. They were 7-9 in their last 16 games before this game.
And worst of all? It was the last game of the regular season. The final tune-up to prove they could get by without Curry before facing the Spurs.
They trailed by 17 points after the first quarter and led 62-33 at halftime. Looking back, it’s easy to be optimistic and realistic about how the Dubs would figure things out. At the time? It was a really scary 40 point loss. A loss that pushed our Daniel Hardee to write an emergency column entitled “Four red alert questions from Dub Nation to Warriors after loss to Jazz.” One of those questions was, “Can the Warriors bounce back in the first round?” » Another was: “Can the Warriors flip the switch?” »
May 16, 2018 at the Houston Rockets: 127-105
The Warriors overcame that scare against the Jazz and topped the Spurs in the first round and the Pelicans in the semifinals. Next up are the dangerous Rockets, who beat the Warriors by a staggering seven wins in the regular season.
After winning the first game of the series – on the road, no less – the Dubs looked more than vulnerable in Game 2, getting outscored in every quarter. It seemed like the tide was changing, and even though the Rockets would go up 3-2 in the series, we all know how things ended.
February 9, 2022 at Utah Jazz: 111-89
Utah sure is giving Golden State fits, right?
Maybe a 22-point road loss isn’t exactly embarrassing, especially since the Dubs were without Draymond Green and Klay Thompson. But there were some holes in the armor. It ended a nine-fight winning streak so emphatically that it called into question the legitimacy of that winning streak.
Which turned out to be right, because…
March 28, 2022 @ Memphis Grizzlies: 123-95
Injuries and rest made it an acceptable loss, even in a blowout. The Dubs were starting third-year Jordan Poole and rookie Jonathan Kuminga alongside Gary Payton II, Kevon Looney and Andrew Wiggins. But it was still an emphatic loss, followed by a less emphatic loss to the Suns two days later.
Since that early February loss to the Jazz and until the last game in March, the Warriors had fallen to a 7-16 record through more than a quarter of the season. They only had five regular season games left before a playoff series that would likely include a date with this same Grizzlies team.
Talking about that…
May 11, 2022 @ Memphis Grizzlies: 134-95
It was a loss. My God, it was a loss. Tensions were high between the dynastic Dubs and the upstart Grizzlies. There was trash talk, violent plays, shots fired in the media.
Through it all, Golden State led 3-1 heading into a Game 5 at Memphis…and a chance to shut down the Grizzlies was shooting at an on-court rivalry from this cocky young team.
Instead, the Dubs blew away, setting up what appeared to be a must-win Game 6. You don’t really want Game 7 going against a team that just beat you by 39 points.
We’ll never know if Game 6 was actually a must-win, because the Warriors won it. And then he won eight more matches to lift another trophy.
If they pull off something remarkable and do the same this year, there will be no shortage of lopsided losses that will be met with a shrug.
