SAN FRANCISCO —Steve Kerr and Erik Spoelstra grew close over the summer, traveling to the Philippines to coach the USA national team in the FIBA World Cup. They swapped stories, enjoyed bus rides and grabbed beers.
It was clear which head coach had the upper hand on Thursday night in the Chase Center, and it wasn’t the one still searching for his best lineups.
Spoelstra’s squad threw zones, full-court pressures and traps at Golden State. The Heat snatched the ball from the Warriors and took care of it. They bottled up Steph Curry, were first to 50/50 balls and forced the Warriors into 42% field goal shooting and 24.2% from deep. Golden State stepped on the baseline, lost dribbles, and threw errant passes en route to a pile of early turnovers.
Despite playing a Heat team without star Jimmy Butler and rotation players Caleb Martin, Josh Richardson and Kyle Lowry, the Warriors led in the early minutes of the second quarter but never again.
“Seems like all year, every game’s been close,” Kerr said postgame. “We’ve been competitive and tough, and tonight we kind of lost that competitiveness. It felt like we got demoralized. Shots weren’t going in, and they just took it to us. We know what’s coming when three or four guys are out of the lineup — this is a common theme in the NBA. Especially when you play Miami…They controlled the game. We got out-coached, out-worked, out-played.”
To start a seven-game home stand, the Warriors (15-16) got outclassed by the short-handed Heat, 114-102. They spent much of the fourth quarter down 20, and even Curry spent crunch time on the bench even when they threatened to come back. Curry finished with 13 points — his second lowest total of the season — on 3-for-15 shooting. Tyler Herro paced Miami with a game-high 26 points and seven rebounds.
“It wasn’t his night,” Kerr said of Curry. “This is all part of an 82-game season. Guys are going to have some tough nights, tough stretches. I’m not worried about Steph, that’s for sure.”
Before Thursday’s game, Kerr said he hopes the Warriors will continue to find the right players to maximize their lineups while the team’s at home. One combination Kerr has been reluctant to play is Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga — Golden State’s most athletic wings, whose skill sets may overlap too much.
Wiggins and Kuminga’s minutes together this year have been a disaster. But the Warriors will continue to try to see if they can coexist because they represent their most dynamic wings. Against the Heat, they played together for a three minute stretch, first surrounded by Chris Paul, Dario Saric and Klay Thompson and later with Curry instead of Paul.
With the Kuminga-Wiggins pair, the Warriors went scoreless for over three minutes. Kuminga committed four turnovers and both forwards missed an open 3. The unit didn’t dominate defensively, either. Kerr’s inclination that the two could be redundant looked apt.
Six of the Warriors’ nine first-half turnovers came from Kuminga. The Heat, who didn’t turn the ball over once in the first half, led by as much as 14, but a strong 11-4 Golden State run cut the deficit to 58-51 at halftime.
Some of the Warriors’ best contributions came from their rookies. Center Trayce Jackson-Davis (10 points, 11 rebounds) supplied excellent defense inside on Bam Adebayo. Brandin Podziemski continued to make an impact, registering 10 points and five rebounds — though he derided himself postgame for not bringing the necessary energy he expects to.
But Jaime Jacquez Jr., whom Miami drafted one spot ahead of Podziemski, was the best rookie on the floor. He and Herro had answers every time the Warriors threatened to take the lead. And although the Warriors cleaned up their turnovers, their self-inflicted wounds kept coming. On one third-quarter possession, they missed two layups — one from Jackson-Davis and another by Wiggins. More point-blank misses came during a fourth quarter in which the Warriors kept Curry on the bench for the final 5:34 despite getting as close as 13.
The Heat dropped 69 points across the second and third quarters, earning separation it wouldn’t cede.
“Spo always has his guys ready,” Kerr said. “You know what you’re facing when you face Miami. They’re not going to give you anything. It seemed like they beat us to loose balls, beat us to rebounds, and they had some guys step up.”
The Heat got contributions from two-way players RJ Hampton and Jamal Cain (18 points, six rebounds). With Butler and three rotation players sidelined, they needed them. A shorthanded game on the road is the type of game Spoelstra’s teams have constantly won over the years. Jackson-Davis said Kerr warned the team about just that in their pregame meeting.
“Guys that don’t usually play, they stepped up and made plays,” Jackson-Davis said. “They played good games, they played hard. That’s something (Kerr) was preaching before the game, that they’re going to come out even harder than they would if they had their starters.”
The Warriors, of course, aren’t at full strength, either, as Draymond Green remains indefinitely suspended and Gary Payton (calf) is day-to-day.
Still, there was no reason why the Warriors shouldn’t have been much more competitive. No reason for Curry to solemnly linger on the bench after the final buzzer, towel hanging over his head. The Warriors started off their home stand on the wrong foot. Or, rather, with a foot out of bounds.
