Just about everything has gone right for the Warriors lately. But all good things must come to an end.
The Cavaliers kept control for most of the night, absolutely dominating on the inside, outscoring the Warriors 58-24 in the paint.
The Cavs took a 114-105 victory, off the backs of Donovan Mitchell (31 points) and Darius Garland (24 points).
Evan Mobley (16) and Jarett Allen (9) combined for 25 rebounds, and Cleveland put together a nice all-around effort for its first home win.
After scoring 141 points against the Thunder on Friday in a thrilling in-season tournament opener, the Warriors’ offense simply ran out of juice on Sunday and the Dubs dropped to 5-2.
Here are three takeaways.
Steph is on fire, but he still needs some help
Curry in Year 15 has looked unreal so far, as if from a different planet or universe.
But there are times like today when Curry is still making 3s at an insane clip, but there isn’t anyone else around him to pick up weight.
After Curry dropped 11 points and three 3-pointers in the first, the Warriors led 30-29 going into the second quarter, and that’s when the Warriors got stuck in an offensive iceberg.
They only scored 15 points in the second quarter and went on an 8:22 cold span in the first half.
Andrew Wiggins, Kevon Looney, Chris Paul, and Dario Šarić combined for 15 points total.
The Warriors have been running a unit of Paul, Šarić, Jonathan Kuminga, Gary Payton II and Moses Moody a lot lately, which put together 28 points on Sunday.
Steve Kerr will look for more lineups with some offensive prowess as the season goes along when Curry is off the court —a never-ending pickle Steve Kerr has dealt with for most of Curry’s career.
Trayce Jackson-Davis is the real deal
The late second-round draft pick was taken by the Warriors this year with the hopes of him filling a much-needed void of big man minutes outside of Kevon Looney.
Although this is only the third game he has logged minutes in this season, his seven-minute stint in the third quarter brought the Warriors back into the game.
In the third quarter, Jackson-Davis put up five points and three rebounds, with a block and a steal.
He only finished with 11 minutes when it was all said and done, but seeing him fill up the stat sheet with such limited opportunity is promising in the long run. Especially for a guy who had just been recalled from the G-League.
The Kuminga hype train has to slow down a little
Coming into the season, Jonathan Kuminga was seen as the third-year, high-potential youngster who could take the Warriors to another level.
He hasn’t wholly failed that expectation, averaging a respectable 12.8 points on 49% shooting from the field in five games to start the season, but today showed signs that it will be a work in progress with ups and downs.
Today was a down game for Kuminga. He started 0-for-6 from the field to start the game going into the second quarter and was one of the main road blocks that hindered the Warriors’ offense in the first half.
Kuminga has been looked at as the offensive spark plug in the second unit and has rotated with Chris Paul for sixth-man duties throughout the first seven games, but when the offense isn’t clicking for Kuminga, it’s hard to keep him out there for long.
Although the potential can still be considered through the roof, there are times when he looks discombobulated when things aren’t falling his way, and defensively can be too much of a liability to keep on the court.