What we learned as Warriors' fourth-quarter collapse hands Pacers first win originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Salt meet wound.
After losing to the Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Milwaukee Bucks, the Warriors fell 114-109 against the previously winless Indiana Pacers on Saturday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
The Pacers weren’t only without Tyrese Haliburton, but also a plethora of others. They didn’t have Andrew Nembhard, Obi Toppin, Bennedict Mathurin and TJ McConnell. And it didn’t matter.
Pascal Siakam and Aaron Nesmith combined to score 58 points, and they were joined by Quenton Jackson, who is on a two-way contract, scoring 25 points with 10 assists.
Steph Curry scored an ugly team-high 24 points. Curry was a minus-21, and the Warriors were better with him on the bench.
Jimmy Butler did a bit of everything, scoring 20 points with six rebounds, seven assists, three steals and two blocks. Jonathan Kuminga provided 17 points and Brandin Podziemski scored 16. But the desperate Pacers were the hungrier team.
Though the Warriors cut their turnovers from 22 the previous game to 16 on Saturday, they still allowed the Pacers to score 17 free points. A number of live-ball turnovers hurt the Warriors. So did the Warriors fouling eight more times than the Pacers and shooting a lowly 27.3 percent from three, going 12 of 44.
Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ first losing streak of the 2025-26 NBA season.
Steph Struggles
As Curry struggled to find his shot and the Warriors were on the verge of losing to the winless Pacers, coach Steve Kerr called timeout and his biggest star took a seat halfway through the third quarter. The Warriors trailed 73-67 at time, and then were ahead by 10 when he came back in with six and a half minutes left in the fourth.
Kerr wasn’t going to let Curry keep watching from the bench, but maybe he should have.
Curry played the final six minutes and 26 seconds of the fourth quarter and was a minus-13. In his six-plus minutes of the fourth, Curry scored six points while making only two of his seven shot attempts, including 1 of 5 on threes and even a missed free throw. Curry failed to grab a single rebound and only had two assists as he turned the ball over five times for his second consecutive game.
The game’s greatest shooter was 8 of 23 from the field and 4 of 16 behind the 3-point line. Trying to get past the Pacers’ pressure-filled defense, Curry looked his age and will have to regroup for Tuesday’s game back at Chase Center against the Phoenix Suns.
The Siakam & Nesmith Show
Already down their biggest star, Tyrese Haliburton, the Pacers also were without a handful of other key figures against the Warriors like Bennedict Mathurin, Andrew Nembhard, Obi Toppin, TJ McConnell and more. The stage was set for Siakam to be a star, and the Warriors were searching for answers early on.
Siakam scored 10 points on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting in the first quarter while doing work to the Warriors’ makeshift zone defense. All of Siakam’s five shots were around the rim, with his furthest being an 11-foot floater. He then opened the second quarter making a 16-foot jump shot before finally missing a shot, which was his first 3-point attempt of the night. That’s when Nesmith joined the party for the Pacers.
Nesmith scored six points in the first quarter and then really got going in the second, making two two-pointers, two 3-pointers and two free throws for 12 points. By halftime, he was the Pacers’ leading scorer with 18 points and Siakam was right behind at 16. The rest of the Pacers scored 19 points in the first half.
Jackson joined the party in the second half, but Siakam and Nesmith never slowed down. Siakam found his sweet spots around the paint — and hit a dagger three with 37 seconds left. Siakam scored 27 points on 12-of-23 shooting. The game, however, belonged to Nesmith. He went from averaging 11 points this season to scoring a career-high 31. Nesmith made five threes the previous two games combined and then made five on the Warriors.
Cleared For Takeoff
What’s the fastest path from Point A to Point B? A Kuminga dunk, apparently.
Sit back and pick your jaw off the floor.
Kuminga threw down a grand total of five dunks. He missed consistently from the mid-range and was 1 of 3 beyond the arc. What he did do was power his way to the rim.
On multiple occasions, Kuminga has said he won’t participate in the Slam Dunk Contest. In losing fashion, he showed how his in-game leaping ability can be such a weapon when the Warriors’ offense goes flat.
