Back to the future: Warriors vs. Hawks

The Golden State Warriors had their losing streak climb to three after suffering a 117-111 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday. They’ve now lost seven of their last eight games, and are officially reeling.

Let’s see how they did on their pregame keys to victory from my preview.

Wings

The key: Solid play from the wings.

The outcome: Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre Jr. both had solid games, which was good to see. It feels like one or the other has played well in almost every game this year, but very rarely both.

Offensively, this was one of those rare times. Oubre was the team’s second-leading scorer, with 20 points on 9-for-16 shooting, and added 11 rebounds and 2 assists. Wiggins contributed 16 points on 6-for-12 shooting, and had 5 rebounds and 2 assists.

They both had nice stats defensively, with 2 steals for each player, and 3 blocks for Oubre. But the defense was not as solid as those stats would suggest, for those two or for the team.

Golden State has had the worst defense in the league over the last eight games, and everyone is to blame. That includes their two wings, who the Warriors are relying on to be defensive stalwarts.

Still, the offense was nice to see.

Grading the key: 7 out of 10.

Bench mob

The key: A few good contributions from the bench.

The outcome: Oh dear. This is not a fun one to revisit.

The Warriors bench struggled in a big way. Damion Lee had a solid game, with 9 points and 3 rebounds on 3-for-6 shooting, but you won’t find much nice beyond that. Jordan Poole and Kent Bazemore struggled shooting, combining for just 8 points on 4-for-17 shooting, and whiffing from distance, where they shot 0-for-8. Kevon Looney and Juan Toscano-Anderson were non-factors. Nico Mannion, Mychal Mulder, and Alen Smailagić stayed on the bench.

Golden State’s reserves looked even worse when compared to Atlanta’s (and that’s a knock on the Dubs second unit as well, since their defense is partially responsible for that). Danilo Gallinari outscored the Warriors bench all on his own, with 25 points on 5-for-8 shooting. He shot nearly as many free throws (15) as the entire Warriors team (21).

On the whole, Atlanta’s four subs — Gallinari, Lou Williams, Tony Snell, and rookie Onyeka Okungwu — combined for 55 points on 13-for-28 shooting, with 27 attempted free throws and 20 rebounds.

The contrast was very stark.

Grading the key: 0.5 out of 10.

Star power

The key: An angry performance from Steph Curry and Draymond Green.

The outcome: For as disappointing as the game was for the Warriors, Curry and Green both played well. They had their weaknesses — 8 turnovers for Curry, and good-not-great defense from Green — but they were far and away the best players for the Dubs.

Curry had a highly efficient 37 points, while Green had 11 points, 7 rebounds, 11 assists, and 4 steals. Golden State outscored Atlanta by 8 points in Curry’s minutes, and by 9 in Green’s.

They did look a little angry, and Curry’s post-game comments certainly were. On the list of who to blame for this loss, these two are last.

Grading the key: 8.5 out of 10.

Good enough to keep things close. Not good enough to win.