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The Golden State Warriors, sans Steph Curry, put forth a mighty effort against the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday night, overcoming a 24-point deficit to hold a lead for much of the fourth quarter. But it wasn’t quite enough, as they ended up losing the game 108-98, and dropping to .500.
So how did they do on their pregame keys to victory? Let’s revisit them and see.
Limit the wings
The key: Don’t let Philly’s wings find too much offensive rhythm
The outcome: The Sixers wings didn’t dominate, but they did have strong showings. Tobias Harris led all scorers with 25 points on 9-for-18 shooting, and also snagged 13 rebounds. Danny Green and Furkan Korkmaz combined for 23 points on 8-for-17 shooting.
The Warriors had some really strong defensive moments, but weren’t able to really knock the Sixers wings too much off their rhythm.
Grading the key: 4 out of 10.
Be small
The key: Get out and run, and play small
The outcome: The Warriors never really committed to playing small, as centers James Wiseman and Kevon Looney combined to play 43 minutes, leaving just 5 minutes of Draymond Green playing center. They also didn’t run much at all, and finished with just 8 fastbreak points.
Playing small seemed like a potential area to find an advantage against a physical, large, and defensively elite squad, but the Warriors just couldn’t do it.
Grading the key: 0.5 out of 10.
Three ball
The key: Win the three-point battle
The outcome: The good news is that the Warriors did win the three-point battle. The bad news is that they still made just 8 triples on the night.
That was a sign of good defense that the Dubs held Philly to just 7 made threes on 29.2% shooting. But the Warriors don’t score enough at the rim to win games where they only make 8 threes on 32.0% shooting. That needed to be a much bigger part of their gameplan.
Grading the key: 5.5 out of 10.
Despite not doing very well with these keys, it was a rather encouraging effort by the Warriors. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough.