In a Tale of Two Halves, Warriors Continue Their Tumble in Overtime Against Knicks
On Star Wars Night in Chase Center, this was not the outcome the Warriors were looking for.
In a matchup of arguably the two worst teams in the NBA, the Warriors played an ugly first half, made a valiant comeback effort in the second half, and ran out of gas in the extra period to fall 124-122 in overtime to the New York Knicks.
The Warriors’ first half performance would have been fairly bad against any team. That they played the way they did against the 4-20 Knicks just made it that much worse. They allowed 68 points in the half to a team that had scored less than 100 in five of their previous seven games. To be fair, the defense actually wasn’t as bad as that number indicates. The rotations were fairly crisp and the on-ball defense wasn’t great, but it was adequate. Acceptable, especially given the pace of play. The Knicks were simply hitting some tough shots and taking advantage of the breakdowns when they did occur. They had been experiencing a number of cold shooting nights clustered together and the law of averages was swinging things back in the other direction. If the Warriors could simply shoot even moderately well, they’d be right in the game.
They did not. For long stretches they couldn’t get the lid off the basket. Good looks clanked off the rim. Multiple players struggled with shot selection. D’Angelo Russell, Glenn Robinson III and Draymond Green all did their best to carry the load, but none of them did so efficiently. The Warriors shot just 33.3% in the first half as Golden State trailed by as much as 22 before putting themselves in an 18-point hole after 24 minutes of play. Were the Warriors really about to get blown out, at home, by the New York Knicks?
Thankfully, that did not happen. The defense used traps and double-teams to slow the Knicks down and tighten things up. (To be fair, the Knicks also simply missed some of the shots they were making in the first half.) But more importantly, the offense got going. Russell and Alec Burks both scored with volume and efficiency. The Warriors simply executed better, moved the ball a little more smoothly and took better shots en route to 58.5% shooting from the field in the second half. Soon enough, they were right back in the game and took the lead with about eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. From there, the two teams went back and forth. The Knicks would pull away, the Warriors would scramble to get back into the game, the Knicks would pull away again, and so on and so forth. Give the Warriors credit on that: they kept fighting, even when it looked like the Knicks were in position to slam the door shut on the game. Of course, that highlights the incompetence of the Knicks just as much as it highlights the mettle of the Warriors. A bad team is going to have difficulty closing games.
After RJ Barrett split a pair of free throws with under 10 seconds remaining to give the Knicks a three-point lead, the Warriors got the ball back. Russell found himself in the corner and sank a tough quick-release three over Mitchell Robinson to tie the game. Inexplicably, the Knicks didn’t foul, but Russell took advantage of the break and sent the contest into overtime.
In overtime, both teams looked exhausted. The Warriors were just slightly more so, and that seemed to make the difference. The majority of their 12 field goal attempts came up short, the defensive effort lagged and little by little the Knicks put the game away. The Warriors now sit at 5-21 and, at least for the moment, lead the NBA’s tank race for the worst record in the league and a shot at the first overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft.
Two of the worst teams in the league went head-to-head on Wednesday night, and the Warriors were slightly worse slightly more often. They played well for about half the game — but that’s rarely good enough in the NBA, and it certainly wasn’t against the Knicks.