Tired Warriors come out flat in loss to Knicks

That wasn’t pretty.

The Golden State Warriors had one of their worst outings of the season in a 119-104 loss to the New York Knicks.

The Dubs — who played their third game in four nights — looked like the more tired team from the opening tip. That seemed especially true on defense with Golden State giving up 40 points in the opening 12 minutes to a Knicks team that typically starts slow. Coming into this game, New York was averaging just 25.4 points in the first quarter.

Despite the ugly first quarter, the Dubs went on a run to tie the game at 55-55 with 2:01 left in the second quarter. But less than a minute later, Draymond Green was ejected for apparently making a rude comment to one of the officials.

The Warriors argued that Green was yelling at teammate James Wiseman and not the referee, but it was to no avail. The injured Marquese Chriss even chimed in on Twitter.

We all saw how discombobulated Golden State looks without Draymond in the lineup early in the season, so this ended any hopes of a comeback. The Knicks continued to stretch the lead without Green on the floor and had a comfortable lead throughout the second half.

On the offensive end, Stephen Curry (who else) carried the load once again, leading the team with 30 points, including 20 in the opening half. Unfortunately, the rest of the Dubs combined to go 24-of-66 from the field.

The Dubs only had a lead for 1:13 against New York. Losing in the NBA is never acceptable, but this performance is more the result of the schedule than anything else.

Golden State came out flat, and other than a few stretches during the second quarter, the team stayed that way throughout the contest.

With the NBA’s condensed schedule, games like this are to be expected. Overall, the Dubs have looked like an improved squad compared to what we saw in December.

The good news is that the Warriors can flush this one, take Friday off and then regroup for what should be a tough matchup against the Utah Jazz on Saturday.

Despite the ugly loss, two Golden State players achieved career milestones during the game against the Knicks.

Curry moved into fourth on the Warriors’ all-time games played list. Steph appeared in his 714th career game with Golden State, passing Paul Arizin. Curry sits 93 games behind the legendary Chris Mullin for the franchise record.

Forward Eric Paschall passed 1,000 points in his 74th career game, the fastest of any Dubs’ second-round selection.