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Warriors vs Raptors: Stephen Curry saves the day again, too many turnovers

The Dubs eeked by the Raptors on Tuesday night. Are they starting to wear down during the streak?

By Jeff Cheal
Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Notable Player Performances:

Last night's game at Oracle Arena was again not a pretty sight to watch.

The Toronto Raptors brought their A+ game, and the Golden State Warriors could not pull away after a big second quarter run.

Are the Warriors starting to wear down during the winning streak?

That question looked particularly pressing during the second half of this game as they continued to force in bad passes, miss gimme shots at the rim, and play surprisingly bad defense during stretches. Teams are allowed to have bad nights, and it's possible that the Warriors and their fans have become so accustomed to their record setting ways that bad performances show more obvious than with other teams. A victory is a victory though, and the 115-110 result will still show up in the win column and extend the Warrior's historical start to 12-0.

Golden State was led last night by the typically dominant Steph Curry who dropped 37 points on an efficient 13-23 shooting. I have always appreciated Curry's flow in the game, where he will typically spend a portion of his first half trying increasingly hard to get his teammates shots and in the flow. The Warriors can be carried single handedly by Curry, however they need performance out of their other stars in the stats sheet to take the pressure off the MVP. Each night, it's a mystery who will step up and add their contribution to the offensive side as Klay's slow start has really put extra pressure on the roster. Thompson did throw in 19 points last night, though only going 2 of 9 from deep where he missed some typical Klay gimmies. His big point? He all but disappeared down the stretch. Most of his points came in the surreal second half run that put the Warriors up 18, but then went silent until some late free throws. Klay needs to step in and help solidify the second unit where he can to help stop the Warriors from giving up huge leads when the starters are on the bench.

Other contributions on the floor came from Andrew Bogut's return to the starting lineup to drop 13 points, which included some late hack-a-bogus freebies at the line. The team is featuring the DeAndre Jordan-style lobs in the lane so much more this season, and why not? Fetus Ezeli and Bogut both are gifted with huge amounts of flight areas because of the Warrior's spacing. Why not have them run straight to the rim and give our drivers one more great option?

The story of last night was foul trouble across the board, and say what you want about the officiating, Toronto comes right at you with physical style and lives to control the free throw line. The Warriors, while they like to play a higher pace with generating more outside shots, need to know when to take a page from this book and push toward the basket to control the flow as well. Regardless, the free throw discrepancy last night was atrocious, where the 39-27 doesn't tell half the story. The Raptors were in the bonus last night early and often, and took the Warriors right out of their flow.

Finally, a shout out has to be given to Draymond Green for playing through his flu. There was a slight worry he would miss the game last night, but pushed through and had countless key blocks and contributions. His line might not show it, and his numbers weren't even that fantastic (only a +1 on the plus/minus), but his aggressiveness and timely baskets stopped runs all night long from the Raptors. His biggest moment - a late block on Kyle Lowry when Lowry inexcusably drove to the basket for a layup while his team was out of timeouts down by three. He would come up with the ball, and draw a foul to get to the line for the easy icing.

Warrior Wonder: Steph Curry

On a night where the Warriors needed huge contributions from the team to keep their second half lead, Curry was able to turn it on where he needed to. He had countless big baskets as night night went on, but no more key than the jumper toward the end of regulation to give them the lead. Not enough could be said about his play tonight, even as he missed some wide open early threes before the Raptors decided to start covering him.

Your Obligatory Curry Highlights:

Other Notes:

Toronto hung in there: The Raptors look legit. Yes, the Warriors were off, but Toronto brings to the table a great backcourt that will score them a lot of points this year and wear teams out. Lowry continues to be mad at the Warriors for passing on him because of proposed locker room issues (probably not true, but could you blame him?). Lowry and DeMar DeRozan pressure your defense so much because of their aggressiveness and fantastic defense. Their faults? They play a LOT of one-on-one isolation ball (a staple in the East it seems) and hero ball can only take you so far. The additions of DeMarre Carroll and Corey Joseph make them deep and much more skilled on the ball with a higher IQ than many teams in the league. I expect them as a high east seed (barring no bottoming out like they did last season). Expect the Drakes to go deep into the playoffs.

The officiating dictated this game: I actually don't mean that the referees had a bad night. I think they were spot on all game long. Both teams allowed this game to be controlled and decided by the refs in the end. Toronto held off the Warriors pace by forcing fouls on aggressive drives. The Warriors want teams to shoot long jumpers. When they start going in like they did with the Nets and Raptors, Golden State starts to scramble and has not necessarily been able to handle the penetration to the basket yet. I'm sure Ron Adams will fix this squad up, but Toronto was able to control the entire second half and at times looked unstoppable. The problem? The Warriors were parading to the basket with layup after layup off their great offense and wonderful ball movement. The game will also be remembered for the late offensive foul called on Lowry when the Raptors were prepping to take the lead with under two minutes to go.

Toronto must realize that they had the referees on high alert for contact and rough play. You can't ask for the calls on your drives to create a physical game and not think that the refs would be forced to call the play here. Regardless if Andre initiated the hold or if Lowry locked him, Derozan was having no problems creating his own space all night. You forced the hand of the officials and they had to make the call.

Final thoughts

All the talk going forward will be about when the streak might or will be over. Every game the Warriors are getting team's best effort because teams want to be the one to hang a loss on the champs. Especially going into Thursday's game in Los Angeles - the Clippers will bring all they have after losing a few weeks ago in Oakland. Can Golden State stay with this pressure? Last year the expectations were a lot lower, and winning came almost as a surprise. Now, whenever they don't win by 20, we start looking for what is wrong. Maybe it will take a largely hyped game against their rivals to clean up the act and return to focus.

Last night's win was not pretty, but again it did the job. Credit the home crowd again for pulling the team through. And how could they not - those throwback jerseys? My god, they were great. I even heard a few say they should consider wearing them all the time when they make the move to San Francisco. How could I argue with that?

(follow me on twitter @badiehard)

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