Draymond Green has a history of getting himself kicked out of games when Steph Curry is unavailable. That might extend to games when Jimmy Butler is out.
The Warriors’ embattled power forward came into a tied game with the Dallas Mavericks and committed two personal fouls and a flagrant in 1:52. Dallas rode the extra free throws to an 11-0 run that the Warriors couldn’t overcome in a 123-115 loss.
Steph Curry and De’Anthony Melton combined for 60 points. Green finished with four points, three turnovers and six fouls — plus a flagrant.
The Warriors lost their second straight game and lost their second forward in three games. Jonathan Kuminga had scored 10 points in nine minutes when he had to leave the game with injuries to his ankle and knee. He finished with a plus/minus of +18, second to Melton’s +22 among Warriors players.
Curry put the Warriors on his back with 38 points and eight three-pointers, while new starter Brandin Podziemski had a 10-assist game. Curry’s 12 4th-quarter points weren’t enough to get Golden State past a huge game from Naji Marshall — 30 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, 10-for-12 shooting — and Dwight Powell turning back the clock with 10 points and 12 rebounds.
The Warriors ultimately lost this game in two areas: Rebounding, and fouls. Dallas had 54 rebounds to the Warriors’ 35, and shot 30 free throws to the Warriors’ 18. The bench shot 3-for-16 from deep, Kuminga’s injury derailed the already-tenuous rotations, and Gary Payton II was an improbable -32 in his 17 minutes on the floor while missing three shots within two feet of the hoop.
Melton was once again one of the Warriors best players, scoring his 22 points in 23 minutes, shooting 9-for-15 with two assists and two steals. He may be the most pleasant surprise for the Warriors all year, while unintentionally placing himself in the rumor mill for a deadline deal — though his cheap minimum contract paradoxically might make him harder to trade.
The Warriors spotted the Mavericks a 6-0 lead to begin the game, and for the first part of the first quarter, Golden State’s offense was exclusively Curry three-balls. Kuminga came in and sparked an 8-0 run that featured two different and-ones from the young forward. Why was it that this guy couldn’t see the floor for a month?
When Kuminga re-entered the game in the second, the Warriors went on an immediate 13-3 run, where Melton kept scoring, the Warriors kept sharing the ball, and Kuminga kept attacking the rim — though not with a windmill dunk.
Kuminga had what initially looked like a cute moment with the Dubs up 43-39. He got fouled and while grimacing, temporarily borrowed the seat of a little girl to rest. He got up to drain both free throws, then left the game minutes later. Relieved to see him head for the locker room, the Mavericks went on a 10-0 run.
For the second game in a row, the Warriors lit it up in the third quarter, scoring 39 points, with 13 coming from Curry and eight from Melton. The Warriors shot 16-for-24 and committed only a single turnover, while Marshall and Dubs-killer Brandon Williams kept Dallas close with a combined 18 points of their own.
Moses Moody hit a big shot to cap a 13-4 run to start the quarter, and is now shooting 17-for-29 from three-point range in his last five games.
Golden State eventually pulled ahead of Dallas thanks to a 33-foot heat check three-pointer from Curry. They closed the quarter on a 12-2 run that featured two three-pointers, two layups, and two steals.
The high-water mark for the Warriors came when Buddy Hield hit his second bucket of the quarter, which looked like a three-pointer but was ruled a two. That gave the Warriors a seven-point lead, though one they’d totally surrender within two minutes after a 10-0 Mavericks run. Rookie Cooper Flagg scored four point sin the run, and when Payton blocked his layup, Powell secured the rebound and turned it into one of Max Christie’s five three-pointers (He had 21 points on 7-for-16 shooting, 5-for-12 on threes).
In the entire fourth quarter, the Warriors got three rebounds. Three. They also got possession once when P.J. Washington blocked Curry’s layup out of bounds. It would be hard to avoid getting three rebounds in 12 minutes of play, even with the Mavericks shooting 11-for-17 and going to the line for 13 free throws. But that’s how the Warriors played down the stretch, committing 10 fouls and securing three rebounds. Green had four of the former and one of the latter in his 2:52 of fourth-quarter action.
This isn’t a great team without Jimmy Butler, but this was a very winnable game against an injury-ravaged Mavericks team. Steve Kerr may be scrambling too much, using 10 players in the competitive portion of the final quarter, and it hurt not to have Kuminga after halftime. Then again, Kerr has been known to forget Kuminga is on the bench when he’s been taken out of the game, so it may not have mattered.
The Warriors head to Minneapolis this weekend for what seems to be their annual baseball-style series with the Minnesota Timberwolves, one that hasn’t been kind to the Warriors in the past few years. The Wolves are on a four-game losing streak, which sadly means, they’re due. Two consecutive road games against the team who went to the last two conference finals is bad enough, but Green really looked like he was ready to get kicked out of tonight’s game one way or another. Do we really think he’s going to chill out for two games featuring Rudy Gobert?
