Warriors stay stubborn, pay steep price in brutal loss to tanking Jazz

The flight from Salt Lake City to San Francisco normally takes less than two hours, but understand that it might have felt like two weeks for the Warriors.It was calamitous enough that the Warriors trudged out of Delta Center on Monday night with a 119-116 loss to the injury-depleted and conspicuously tanking Utah Jazz, but the bigger crime was how their own decision-making invited this defeat.The Warriors put forth plenty of indifferent defense, but they further sealed their fate with an astonishing exhibition of mind-boggling offense.The Warriors hugged the 3-point line as if it were their best friend, and they stayed with it even as it became obvious it was their enemy. They missed 36 3-point attempts, which is bound to be problematic in any game. But attempting 52 shots from deep against the defensively defective Jazz is utterly illogical. Yet Warriors coach Steve Kerr, curiously, found little fault with the offense.“We weren’t bad offensively, 31 assists to 10 turnovers,” Kerr told reporters in Salt Lake City. “That’s a great ratio. So, we took care of the ball. We moved it. I didn’t think we got great looks, but we got enough good looks to win. It was our defense that that let us down.”Kerr is correct in noting the desirable assist-to-turnover ratio, but it’s hard to believe the offensive game plan was to come out firing from 25 feet. It’s even harder to believe no one saw the self-inflicted damage unfolding in real time.The defense was indeed a problem. The Warriors were outshot from the field (48.2 percent to 43.4) and from distance (35.3 percent to 30.8). They punished themselves with fouls, and the Jazz exploited it by making 27 free throws.The Warriors, if they like, can mope about the disparity in free throws, getting only 21 attempts to Utah’s 29. They can wince at their shooting from the line, missing seven while Utah missed only two. And, yes, they can blame their defense because it was less than stellar.But the offense sabotaged what should have been a double-digit victory. The Warriors took 12 fewer shots in the paint (40) than beyond the arc but found eight more buckets. They too often fell into the habit of jacking up 3-pointers despite countless possessions in which ball movement led to layups.There was one third-quarter possession that should have sent a memo to the entire roster. They missed three consecutive 3-point attempts, grabbing the rebound each time, before Nate Williams put an end to the madness with, of course, a layup.“There’s a lot of little stuff that we’ve got figure it out,” said Gui Santos, who played with his usual gusto, producing 15 points, eight rebounds and five assists without a turnover. “We’ve got to do at better boxing out; we lost a couple rebounds. We should win more 50-50 balls, and we didn’t. That was the biggest thing that stands out tonight.”The biggest thing that stood out, really, was the stubborn shot selection. Firing up from deep is fine if they’re falling at a commendable rate. That was not the case.Quinten Post started at center and his 3-point shot – his greatest asset – continued to desert him. He missed all six of his shots from deep and now is 8 of 35 (22.9 percent) since January. Santos was 1 of 7 from deep, Gary Payton II was 1 of 5. Only Brandin Podziemski (4 of 6), De’Anthony Melton (3 of 6) and LJ Cryer (3 of 8) found much success.But they stayed with it. With the game there for the taking in the second half, the Warriors shot 6 of 24 from distance. The Warriors lost to a Jazz team without Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr., Walker Kessler, Jusuf Nurki and rookie Ace Bailey.“That hurts,” Santos said. “It’s not good to lose a game like that. We know that we’ve got to win games like that, but we cannot change it now. We’ve just got to go to the next one and win it.”The next one comes Tuesday night at Chase Center against the Chicago Bulls, who have no more interest in winning than the Jazz.If this keep-firing-threes-no-matter-the-inefficiency approach feels like déjà vu, it is. Golden State applied it two nights earlier in Oklahoma City against the Thunder, who were without rim-protecting big man Chet Holmgren. The result was the same, a winnable game lost.The lesson that was taught clearly was not digested by the Warriors because it did not make it to Salt Lake City.Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast

Warriors stay stubborn, pay steep price in brutal loss to tanking Jazz

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