Stephen Curry made a blunt admission of the current state of the Golden State Warriors following their 113-95 loss to Kenny Atkinson’s surging Cavaliers on Monday, December 30, in Cleveland.
“Like the kids say, we’re very mid right now,” Curry told reporters. “Just very average.”
Curry’s straightforward talk sounds like a desperate plea to the Warriors’ front office to get him more help as teams have been zeroing in on him on defense.
The rest of the Warriors roster could only do so much with Curry shackled.
Steph Curry’s Poor Shooting
Atkinson, who served as an assistant under Steve Kerr before taking on the Cavaliers job, mapped out a plan to stop Curry. His Cavaliers executed it with precision, holding Curry to 4-of-14 shooting night, including 3-for-11 from the 3-point line.
“I think we understand that better days can be ahead,” added Curry, who finished with only 11 points. “We’re not in that big of a hole in the Western Conference if you look at the standings.
The Warriors remained glued at 10th place in the Western Conference with a 16-16 record.
“Go on a five or six-game run, to us that sounds like a lot, but it’s the numbers, you can make up a lot of ground pretty quickly,” Curry added. “Tough task, but that fine line between losing hope and confidence and understanding that with one good week, you’re kinda back in it, that’s where we are.”
The Warriors have lost 13 of their last 17 games after a roaring 12-3 start.
Dennis Schröder Trade Isn’t Working
They traded for Dennis Schröder, but it’s not working. They have been 2-5 since acquiring the German point guard.
The Curry-Schröder backcourt’s net rating is minus-13.7, 103.2 on offense, 116.9 on defense, per NBC Sports’ Monte Poole.
“The numbers obviously haven’t been great,” Curry said of his pairing with Schröder. “The feel of him with the ball in his hands, me playing off him, there’s been some good spurts. That Phoenix game was kind of indicative of that.
“But we’ve had more games where we’ve been struggling a little bit. We have to get more clarity on when he’s on the court with me and Draymond [Green], and when he’s with a different unit. Some go-to sets, because teams are starting to go under a lot of the pick-and-rolls and clog the paint.”
Schröder has crashed back to earth, averaging only 9.1 points on 29.7% shooting, 3.9 assists and 2.0 rebounds after he was on pace for a career year with the Nets (18.4 points on 45.2% shooting, 6.6 assists and 3.0 rebounds).
He shot slightly better than Curry against the Cavaliers’ stifling defense on a 4-of-11 shooting night for 12 points. But he had the worst plus-minus among all the Warriors players who played with -24.
Despite the Warriors’ free fall, Warriors coach Steve Kerr plans to stick with the same starting lineup that has a minus-20.2 net rating (100 on offense, 120.2 on defense), per Poole.
“Given the stretch we’re in, losing 12 out of 16, we’ve got to settle in these next couple weeks,” Kerr said. “Stick with the same lineup, the same rotation off the bench if possible, and see if we can find some rhythm.”
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Steph Curry’s Blunt Admission Puts Warriors on Notice