Warriors have ‘no panic’ after 25-point loss in Dallas, their fourth straight

The Warriors have been a nice surprise this season, playing better than most expected while winning enough games early to be in solid playoff position for essentially the entire year.

Things have changed recently, with the team suffering its fourth straight loss on Saturday at the hands of the Mavericks, and not really competing very much along the way in a game where the final deficit was 25 points.

Both the team’s All-Star big man David Lee and head coach Mark Jackson said there would be “no panic” afterward, but good teams aren’t supposed to get steamrolled by 20-plus points game after game, so there should be at least a certain level of concern.

From Art Garcia of Fox Sports Southwest:

“We have no panic, but it’s very frustrating,” David Lee said. “Not only losing four games in a row, but the manner in which we lost them. Every team goes through the up and downs during the season. The key for us is to figure it out sooner rather than later and have a good last game before the All-Star break.”

“We’re fine. There’s no panic,” [Jackson] said. “We lost another game, we didn’t play well, we made mistakes, we did not put together 48 minutes of basketball, but there’s going to be no panic. We’re going to regroup and be preparing for the next one.”

The losing isn’t too worrisome; it’s the way the Warriors are losing, getting blown out by teams that they probably should beat in two of the four losses during this current streak.

It started in Houston, where the Rockets hung 140 on the Warriors, and nearly set the NBA record for most three-pointers made in the game, before Jackson instructed his players to intentionally foul near the end of that contest to make sure that didn’t happen.

That game was followed by a 21-point loss in Oklahoma City the following night, where there’s no shame in losing to one of the league’s best in the Thunder. But the quickness with which the Warriors were dispatched wasn’t pretty, as OKC had 67 points on the scoreboard by halftime, just 24 hours after Houston had put up 77 over the game’s first two periods.

In Memphis two days later, Golden State looked much better, but was ultimately doomed by a 37-point second half of scoring where the team got virtually no help offensively beyond the play of Lee and Stephen Curry. This one wasn’t so bad, as the Grizzlies play hard-nosed defense, especially at home, and make things tough inside with their big man combination of Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol.

The loss in Dallas was one the team will likely blame on the schedule, as well as some injuries. It was the Warriors’ fourth game in five nights, and Jarrett Jack, who’s been huge for this team off the bench all season long, missed his third straight game due to injury. Andrew Bogut, still not cleared yet to play on the second night of back-to-back games, sat this one out, as well.

Jackson and Lee may be correct that there’s no reason to panic yet, despite the team’s season-high losing streak. After two days off, Golden State will get a chance to turn things around at home against the Rockets on Tuesday.

Now, if Houston comes into Oracle and comes away with another double-digit victory, especially after the way the last game between these two teams went down? Then it might indeed be time to allow panic to set in.