Game #46 Recap: Warriors Look Ugly in Loss to Wizards

I had the misfortune of being at Oracle last night. Usually a fun experience for me, but something was off last night. It was really humid, the guy on my left was somewhat annoying, the floor sounded extra squeaky to me, and we missed a heck of a lot of shots.

I should have known it was going to be a bad outcome when one of the acrobatic trampoline kids missed a dunk at halftime. Perhaps, a bad omen.

The Wizards are not a bad defensive team (rated 10th in the league in DRTG), but I don't think it was their defense that forced all those misses, so much as it was just an off night. To be honest, although it was a tough loss to swallow at home to a middling Eastern Conference team (which means a pretty bad team), I'm not more worried about the Warriors than I was before the game. To their credit, the Wizards, especially Wall and Beal got hot in the second half, and for a while, seemingly made every shot they took. I don't think it was necessarily bad defense on our end, they just made shots. As Mark Jackson loves to point out, "it's a make or miss league" (actually to correct him a bit, it's a make XOR miss league, but I digress).

Maybe I'm an eternal optimist (although I've never been accused as such), but I think we're just "mired in a slump" at the moment. I've said this before on the twitterz, that I think it comes with the territory when you rely so much on jump shooters. Nothing shocking in noting that, others have said as much.

A couple things I saw that I liked. Harrison Barnes had 3 assists, and was actually involved in the game for a few spurts. Sure, he also played matador to John Wall at the end of the half, but you can't expect miracles. Speaking of guys who can defend John Wall or Marcin Gortat in the same night, Draymond Green was once again good at basketball. He even shot well (ok, "well"), going 4 for 8. I told my brother (who was sitting on my right!) when Draymond came into the game in the 3rd quarter we were going to make a run and sure enough, we made a run. It's the easiest money in Vegas these days.

@samesfandiari The obvious answer is that I will enjoy Draymond Green guarding John Wall and Nene at some point. ;)

— EvanZ (@thecity2) January 28, 2014

That was my prediction yesterday morning. It turned out I wasn't completely correct. Draymond actual defended John Wall and Marcin Gortat. Because, of course, he did. Why this guy continues to get so little use is beyond me at this point. And I'm not the only one. Maybe Jackson will eventually figure it out.

Jordan Crawford looked pretty good last night, eh? He is turning out to be a great pickup for us. And on a night like last night, when #FullSquad basically laid an egg, it is why TD deserves the WW.

Warrior Wonder

Oh, whaddya know. I can't find a WW picture for Crawford. I guess that's fitting. Still a work in progress, just like the Warriors.