The Golden State Warriors were without Stephen Curry on Tuesday when they visited the Miami Heat after Curry injured his pelvis on Saturday. But one should’ve still expected them to, at the very least, be competitive against a Heat team that came into this game with a 30-41 record.
Instead, Golden State went down with a whimper in a 112-86 defeat. It allowed the Heat to shoot 55.8% from the field and go 17-of-25 from 3-point range, while it shot just 39.8% from the field itself and didn’t have a single player who scored more than 15 points.
In his return to Miami, Jimmy Butler shot just 5-of-12 and scored 11 points and was consistently booed whenever he had the basketball.
Power forward Draymond Green warned his teammates about how they should approach each game by telling the media that the Warriors need to always act as if they’re playing the best team in the NBA.
“We got to make sure that we are approaching every game like we’re playing against the best team in the NBA, because that’s who teams turn into when they play us,” Green said.
“We got to make sure that we are approaching every game like we’re playing against the best team in the NBA, because that’s who teams turn into when they play us,” Green said.
The Warriors, who are less than three years removed from winning their most recent NBA championship, looked dead in the water before they traded for Butler early last month. But once he made his debut, they went on a torrid stretch during which they won 16 of 19 games.
In particular, Curry looked revived and started playing like his vintage self again. Meanwhile, many around the league started calling Golden State a dark-horse contender.
But it has now lost three of its last five games and is clinging to the sixth spot in the Western Conference with a 41-31 record. It is just half a game ahead of the seventh-place Los Angeles Clippers, and it cannot risk having to go through the play-in tournament, given the dangerous teams that will be waiting for them there.
