OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – A celebratory night quickly turned into a puzzling one for the Golden State Warriors.
With the long-range shots not falling as usual and sloppy play from the start, a night that started with Stephen Curry being handed the Most Valuable Player trophy ended with the first home for the Warriors in more than three months.
Curry and backcourt mate Klay Thompson had twice as many turnovers as made 3-pointers and the Memphis Grizzlies tied the second-round series at one apiece with a 97-90 victory Tuesday night that snapped Golden State’s 21-game home winning streak.
”You’re going to have bad shooting nights,” Curry said. ”It happens. We have to keep our confidence and make adjustments to how we get our shots. … We’re not going to overreact to one bad shooting night.”
The Warriors will have three off days to stew over their first home loss since Jan. 27 against Chicago before playing Game 3 in Memphis on Saturday night.
In a season where almost everything went right at home for the Warriors with a 42-2 home record including the postseason and a league-best 67 wins in the regular season, it all went wrong in Game 2 against Memphis.
Golden State committed 20 turnovers, made just 6 of 26 3-pointers and had its lowest-scoring home game of the season.
”Everybody expected us to go undefeated in the playoffs,” forward Draymond Green said. ”Nobody expects us to lose a game at home. Now the whole world has collapsed and the Bay Area has just been hit by an earthquake and everything is going wrong. We’ll be just fine.”
The Splash Brothers were unable to bail out the Warriors in this game. Curry had 19 points but made just 2 of 10 3-pointers and turned the ball over three times. Thompson was even worse with 13 points and xx turnovers, shooting just 1 for 6 from long range.
The Warriors never got going against Memphis’ tough defense spearheaded by Tony Allen. Klay Thompson missed a running one-hander from 3-point range and a dunk on one first-half trip that summed up the night.
Golden State fell behind by 11 at halftime and made a few runs at the Grizzlies in the second half, but never could truly threaten Memphis.
The Warriors trailed by seven points midway through the fourth before Conley hit a bank shot in the lane and Allen stole the ball from Curry and went in for an uncontested dunk to build the lead back to 87-76.
”I thought we lost our poise tonight,” coach Steve Kerr said. ”We were too emotional. We were too quick with our intention to score. Instead of just moving the ball and setting good screens, everyone was trying to do everything franticly on their own.”
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