What we learned as short-handed Warriors fade late in trip-ending loss to Heat

What we learned as short-handed Warriors fade late in trip-ending loss to Heat originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

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The Warriors’ failure to win Tuesday’s game when their Big Three of Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green all played, as well as veteran Al Horford, reared its ugly head Wednesday night in a 110-96 loss to the Miami Heat at the Kaseya Center.

The short-handed Warriors, without Curry, Butler, Green and Horford, gave it their all. A wide talent gap was too much to close as the Heat outscored them 38-22 in the fourth quarter.

A makeshift starting five of Brandin Podziemski, Moses Moody, Will Richard, Gui Santos and Trayce Jackson-Davis had zero chemistry and cohesion to start the game. And how could they? The group had only played four minutes together in one game before Wednesday.

The starters weren’t discombobulated, because they couldn’t even be combobulated with that little amount of time on the court as a unit. It took until the Warriors’ 13th field goal for them to finally make a shot, and it was a Buddy Hield layup. The Warriors also missed their first five 3-point attempts.

It didn’t deter the Warriors one bit, though. Scoring wasn’t going to be easy to come by, so the Warriors instead fought their tails off to keep the game within striking distance for all four quarters. The Warriors tallied a season-high 61 rebounds, including 19 on the offensive glass.

Podziemski was the Warriors’ leading scorer with 20 points. Quinten Post (19 points) and Buddy Hield (18 points) led a bench that outscored the Heat 55-33.

Over $171 million worth of salaries were sidelined for the Warriors. Championship teams aren’t about silver linings or feel-good losses. This also was a flight home from a defeat that the Warriors can hold their heads high from.

Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ second straight loss to end a six-game road trip.

Can’t Question Effort

When the Warriors went down 20-4 in the first six and a half minutes of the game, it was time to start typing about a blowout loss. But the makeshift Warriors never gave up, going on a 16-9 run the rest of the quarter to trail by just nine points going into the second, despite shooting 21 percent from the field.

That level of competitiveness carried over to the second quarter, too. Once down 41-30, the Warriors went on a 10-0 run to make it a one-point game before a Bam Adebayo dunk. But a Quinten Post three tied it up at 43 points apiece, and the Warriors trailed by just four points at halftime, 49-45.

A few minutes into the second half, the Warriors went back down by eight points. They could have folded. However, their response was a 9-0 run to take a one-point lead for the first time all night. Each team kept clawing back, and each team had an answer whenever momentum shifted one way or the other.

Heads weren’t hung and players still sprinted down the floor. The Warriors in the fourth quarter simply ran out of gas.

Building Good Habits

How does a team shooting 27.8 percent from the field and 22.2 percent on 3-pointers stay within striking distance at halftime? Energy, crashing the glass and taking care of the ball.

Led by eight boards from Jackson-Davis, the Warriors outrebounded the Heat 36-30 in the first half. They also had three fewer turnovers, nine to six, and swiped five steals compared to one for the Heat. Those five steals turned into seven points for the Warriors.

The Heat were held to their lowest scoring first half of the season after the Warriors outscored them 25-20 in the second quarter.

Turnovers hurt the Warriors in the third quarter with six compared to the Heat’s two. Yet defensive intensity and making rebounding a top priority had them win the third and hold a two-point lead going into the fourth.

In the end, turnovers were the Warriors’ detriment – as they always are. The Warriors went from six turnovers for nine Heat points in the first half, to 15 turnovers in the second half which became 23 points for the Heat. They’re now 1-8 when losing the turnover battle, and 8-0 when winning it.

Spencer Brings The Noise

Something shifted for the Warriors once the Heat quickly began the game with a 16-point lead. That something was Pat Spencer.

Immediately, things began turning positive for the Warriors. Spencer conducted the offense and moved the ball. He then grabbed six rebounds in the second quarter alone – three on offense and three on defense. Spencer was a plus-4 in the first quarter, and then in the second quarter as well.

Plus, the fiery point guard got into it with Jaime Jaquez Jr. in the second quarter, which turned into a technical foul for the Heat forward.

The game continued to hum in the second half with Spencer as the Warriors’ conductor. Spencer’s logo three kickstarted a key run for the Warriors in the third quarter, and he was on triple-double watch going into the fourth with seven points, seven rebounds and eight assists.

Spencer’s triple-double bid barely came up short. The point guard on a two-way contract ended with 11 points, a career-high 13 assists and eight rebounds as a team-high plus-10 in 32 minutes off the bench.

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