Warriors blow 16-point lead, lose fourth straight to Sixers

The Warriors rode a five-game losing streak into the All-Star break, but as a team, were trying to keep things positive. The streak reached six, before Golden State briefly righted the ship and rattled off three straight wins, but as the schedule toughened, the losses have begun to pile up once again.

A 16-point second quarter lead in Philadelphia disappeared before halftime on Saturday, and as Stephen Curry went cold, the Sixers were able to come away with the 104-97 victory, snapping their string of seven straight losses while handing the Warriors their fourth in a row, and tenth in their last thirteen games.

Curry started off in much the same way he did during his 54-point performance against the Knicks a few days earlier, scoring 23 points in the first half on 8-10 shooting, including 3-4 from three-point distance. In the second half, however, the shot selection was far worse on Curry’s part, and he went just 3-10 from the field, and missed all five of his attempts from beyond the arc.

The second-half three-pointers were all forced shots by Curry; none came within the flow of the offense, and the closest he came to one of them being assisted was one he launched after a rebound that was tapped out landed in his hands before he immediately jacked up the shot.

There’s far too much reliance on Curry to both initiate the offense and be its primary contributor, and we can see by the results that it’s simply not working out.

This game was lost by the Warriors in the second period, when the team held a 16-point lead with 4:43 to play before the half, and saw it cut to just two in the next three minutes. A few quick threes by the Sixers off of Warriors misses or turnovers, and the game was back up for grabs after Golden State had asserted itself enough to take control of it early on.

Philadelphia got a big game out of Jrue Holiday, who finished with 27 points, five rebounds, seven assists, and four steals. Evan Turner finished just one assist shy of a triple-double with 22, 10, and nine, and Thad Young matched David Lee on the boards by hauling down 16 rebounds.

The game never got too out of hand in the Sixers’ favor, but the fourth quarter was a disaster for the Warriors. They allowed Philadelphia to shoot better than 62 percent from the field in the period, while hitting just 7 of their 23 shots over that span, including a dismal 1-7 from three-point distance.

Defensively is where the Warriors are going to need to improve if they’re going to begin to turn things around. They can score to a certain extent on a nightly basis given their personnel, but unless they can get some stops it isn’t going to matter.

Looking at the big picture, Golden State’s slide has them in sixth place in the West, now just a half-game in front of Utah for seventh and a single game ahead of Houston, who for the moment is holding off the Lakers in the eighth and final playoff position.