SAN FRANCISCO — As soon as Nikola Jokic unleashed a last-second shot from just beyond half-court, Klay Thompson looked up and thought to himself, “no way.”
It happened again.
The Warriors blew an 18-point lead in the fourth quarter and Jokic drained a long-range 3-pointer at the buzzer as the NBA champion Denver Nuggets captured a 130-127 win at Chase Center on Thursday night.
“We got too cool out there,” Thompson said.
And another one slipped away.
“It’s frustrating because you play the what-if game and we could be 21-13 right now,” said Steph Curry, whose Warriors instead fell to 16-18. “There’d be a different vibe around the team. Even with the team we are now, we know we can compete. It’s just a situation where you’re out here with the look of despair on your face because you’re trying to figure out how it happened.”
With 6:51 to play, the Warriors were leading 123-105 and Curry was 11-for-18 with 28 points. The Warriors offense had been fast-paced and sharp, spacing the floor and passing the ball like a hot potato until it fell into the hands of an open shooter.
Now holding a big lead, Curry wanted to slow it down.
“We were trying to milk the clock,” he said.
But with the Nuggets setting their defense, the Warriors’ possessions became clunky and slow. They let the shotclock expire twice. They couldn’t penetrate or find clean looks.
“The offense just forced the ball into Steph’s hands and relied on him to take it home for us,” Brandin Podziemski said.
The Warriors made just one of their last 11 field goal attempts. Curry finished by missing five consecutive jumpers.
“Then the basketball gods took over from there with Jokic’s shot,” Curry said. “Tough way to finish with the way we played the whole game.”
Curry had his chance.
With the game tied, 127-127, Curry began a possession with 26 seconds left and looked to waste time again. He held the ball until there were 14 seconds left, then started moving around the perimeter. But he couldn’t find an opening. He looked across the court and flung a wild pass that went straight into the hands of the Nuggets’ Jamal Murray.
Denver called a timeout with 3.1 seconds left. Nuggets coach Michael Malone drew up a play. Jokic wasn’t supposed to get the ball, he said. The 7-foot center was the third option.
But Jokic easily broke free of Kevon Looney and the pass went straight to him. He darted past the half-court line like he knew exactly where he’d take his final shot. He set his feet and let one go from 39 feet.
“As soon as I saw him load up his feet, the way the momentum was going in that game, it had a good chance of going in,” Podziemski said.
Jokic hit the shot, opened his arms and let out a scream. He stomped his feet across the floor and leaped into his teammates’ arms.
Curry was so stunned he stood still on the court for at least 15 seconds, staring at the spot where Jokic made his mark.
“That last possession, that turnover, I want back,” he said.
He usually waits until he gets home to rewatch his night’s work, but Curry couldn’t wait this time.
Before he got to the podium for his postgame press conference, Curry sat down with his phone, opened the video file sent to him by a staff member and started watching the final six minutes.
He wanted to relive the nightmare. He wanted to understand it.
And then he explained it, how the Warriors gave up a commanding lead and watched what could’ve been a signature win transform into a potentially season-defining loss.
Again.
“When you’re struggling to identify who you are as a team, and what your identity is and how you win games, and you play a team that knows who they are like Denver — the three games we played them it’s come down to the wire every single time, but they have a chemistry that they know, whether they make or miss shots, they know what they’re trying to do,” Curry said. “We haven’t established that. So when things go wrong there’s a little bit of looking around.
“It’s in our control to figure that out. But there have been too many situations like tonight, where we play a heck of a game with nothing to show for it.”
Jokic finished with 34 points while going 13-for-16 from the floor and 2-for-2 from three-point range. The MVP candidate also dished out 10 assists and added nine rebounds.
The Warriors scored 44 points in the third quarter, their highest-scoring quarter of the season, but it didn’t matter. A memorable win became the fourth time in a month that the Warriors lost a game they once led by at least 18 points.
“We probably lost four or five we should’ve won and maybe won one or two we shouldn’t have, but these are gut punches,” said head coach Steve Kerr.
The Warriors were crushed, but said they aren’t hopeless. Not yet.
“We have not figured out who we are,” Curry said. “We prove it on a nightly basis. But there’s still belief we can.
“Nights like tonight are really loud with how far we are from the team we want to be, from being a competitive team trying to beat the best in the league. Hold onto that hope. But be honest from how far we are where we want to be.”
