The clock may be ticking on Stephen Curry's career, but there's no question this is still his Warriors team.
Ahead of Golden State's Christmas Day showdown with the Lakers, the four-time NBA champions called a players-only meeting. ESPN coverage.
If Wednesday's intimate talk brought anyone to their senses, it was Curry himself. The 36-year-old star dropped a game-high 38 points, but it still wasn't enough to lift Golden State above Los Angeles.
LeBron James had 31 points and 10 assists for the Lakers, and the 115-113 victory lifted Los Angeles to 17-13 and sixth place in the Western Conference.
Meanwhile, Curry and the Warriors lost their second straight game, falling to 15 wins and 14 losses. Golden State finished 12-3, but has lost 11 of its past 14 games.
Curry's player-only meeting certainly had a lot to do with that precipitous decline.
“Obviously this is a turning point in terms of where our season goes.” curry said After the loss. “Our last 14 games have been a struggle to find any kind of momentum or consistency, but we can't lose the spirit and belief that we are a good enough team.”
Golden State's front office certainly agrees with that. Despite a number of disappointing losses over the past month and a downward trend in the play of the best shooter in the history of the game, the Warriors' front office continues to strengthen the roster at the expense of draft capital.
In early December, they acquired point guard Dennis Schroder from the Nets for three future second-round picks.
Through his first four games with the Warriors, Schroder is averaging 8.5 points and four assists in 27 minutes per game.
Schroder scored 11 points and made 3 of 10 from the field in the loss to the Lakers.
“We’re all disappointed, head coach.” steve kerr said With his post game presser. “We have lost a little bit of confidence, you can feel it. There was a great atmosphere at the beginning of the season and now we are feeling that atmosphere.
“But I love our players, high-character players. They care. They care about each other. I believe in them. We're in this situation. It's all part of the season and part of life because I believe in turning things around.”
Curry did everything he could to get the Warriors back in the win column, making 14-of-24 shots overall and 8-of-15 from beyond the arc. Seventeen of his 38 points came in the fourth quarter, including two 3-pointers with five seconds to play.
The game was tied at 113 with 7.6 seconds left, but Austin Reeves' driving layup with 1.7 seconds left sealed the Lakers' victory on Christmas Day.
“I still have hope and faith and confidence that I can figure it out. That's the way I'm made,” Curry said. “And I feel like you go out and talk about it, but how you execute, how you show up every night, the effort we're giving, and in the final stretch. Even considering what our record was… [we’re] A team desperately trying to solve it, [but it] It's just not going the way we expected. So we have to maintain that mentality until things change. ”
