Warriors lose to Suns; depress fanbase some more

WE NEED TO STOP THE BLEEDING!

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re bringing up the one and only Splash Fro to share his recap from last night’s game. Show him some love!

It’s hard to imagine a time when winning back to back games was more than enough to get Dub Nation’s pulse racing about our squad. Entertaining to watch. Skilled enough to compete. On the outskirts of playoff contention. It didn’t always translate to wins, but even the most modest of winning streaks had us thinking this was our time. “We got next!”

It was that disturbingly familiar feeling I had heading into Friday night’s action against the visiting Phoenix Suns. I was surprised to see Phoenix holding down the 10th seed heading into the game. The Bradley Beal off the bench experiment seems to be working for now - Suns are 9-5 in January.

A brutal December record obliterated this season’s championship aspirations for the Dubs but Warriors Ground wins this week against the Jazz and the Western Conference leading Thunder reminded the league how dangerous the Warriors could be as a playoff spoiler.

How would my weekend start? Riding a three game win streak having vanquished Devin Booker and Kevin Durant? Or would the Warriors be reality checked back to the .500 team? It didn’t take long to find out.

It was close until it wasn’t

The Warriors did their best to keep it close early. Buddy Hield’s early three-pointers got the crowd going only to be punctuated by Gui Santos’ crossover on KD. Despite nearly matching the Suns output, the Warriors found themselves only down three at the end of the first quarter.

The missed layups and putbacks were a tough pill to swallow for a team that’s been struggling to score especially in the non-Steph Curry minutes. Loved how the defensive energy remained.

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The second quarter would see the Suns settle in and create some scoreboard separation. A demoralizing stretch would dig the hole. Down eight, an offensive turnover after a Golden State timeout would lead to a Beal bucket. Mason Plumlee would block Quinten Post’s layup attempt leading to a Grayson Allen highlight dunk. Another GSW timeout. Gonna be tough pulling out of this one especially with #30’s slow start.

The Suns would blow it open in the 3rd quarter. Curry came out after halftime aggressively, but the Warriors (4th oldest team in the league) started to look like a team playing its third game in four nights.

The Chase Center crowd went silent for the most of the second half. I don’t even think KD or Booker played the 4th. Remember when we’d finish teams off in the third? I miss those days. #defcon3

The blowout allowed coach Steve Kerr some latitude to experiment with lineups. One interesting combination saw veteran Dennis Schroder flanked by the youths: Gui Santos, Brandin Podziemski, Moses Moody and Trace Jackson-Davis satisfying those in Dub Nation yelling to play the kids more.

At the start of the season, my friend called the Warriors a play-in team at best and GSW flirting with .500 is proving him right. Sure on any given night, you have a puncher’s chance when you’ve got Curry on the roster, but we’re all anxiously awaiting what trade deadline magic General Manager Mike Dunleavy Jr is going to conjure up.

The Warriors wrap up this homestand on Monday versus the Orlando Magic then depart on a 6 game road trip before returning home to host All Star Weekend.