Nuggets at Warriors
The Golden State Warriors suffered the worst home loss of the Steve Kerr era with a 128-95 setback to the Boston Celtics on Tuesday and are going through a bit of a lull as they try to find the form they'll need to chase a third straight championship. The Warriors will try to find some extra motivation when they host the team directly behind them in the Western Conference standings on Friday, the Denver Nuggets.
Golden State got down early against Boston on Tuesday and never recovered, suffering its fifth loss in the last eight games. "Right from the beginning, just the level of competition wasn't where it needed to be," Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters. "It was 11-to-nothing in about three minutes, four minutes. And it looked to me like we were jogging up the floor. You can't play basketball jogging. You got to sprint. Your cuts have to be hard. You got to be going all out. And we did not go all out. And it was embarrassing." Denver, which sits one game behind Golden State in second place in the West, wasn't able to fully take advantage of the Warriors' struggles while dropping three in a row but bounced back with a win at the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday. "After losing three in a row, with 19 games to go, we felt like this was a must-win," Nuggets coach Michael Malone told reporters. "For our guys to pull it out after they had cut it to two, we're going to be in a lot more close games, so the more we do this the better off we're going to be."
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, Altitude (Denver), NBCS Bay Area (Golden State)
ABOUT THE NUGGETS (43-21): Wednesday's win featured a breakout performance from guard Gary Harris, who scored 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting after being held to single digits in each of the previous four contests. "We don't win this game without him," Malone told reporters. "Gary never gets fazed. He's very calm, especially when things are getting tight, and you need that. You don't want guys out there playing tight, afraid to make mistakes. ... He's the one guy in that starting lineup that we've been trying to find a way to get his rhythm back." The starting backcourt of Harris, Jamal Murray and Will Barton combined to hit 10 of Denver's 13 3-pointers in the win.
ABOUT THE WARRIORS (44-20): Golden State allowed Boston to shoot 51 percent from the floor on Tuesday, and defensive lapses have been a frequent problem of late. "We got to want it," All-Star point guard Stephen Curry told reporters. "We got to want to figure it out. We understand the personnel that we have out on the floor and some of the struggles we've had -- just being able to execute it and sustain it over the course of 48 minutes. We haven't gotten there yet. And if we want to be the team we want to be come April, we can't just continue to talk about it and talk about it and expect to be able to flip a switch. At some point in these next (18) games we gotta show it." Curry led the team with 23 points in the loss.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. The Warriors signed veteran C Andrew Bogut for the remainder of the season.
2. Nuggets C Nikola Jokic recorded at least a double-double in 10 of the last 11 games.
3. Golden State earned a dominating 142-111 victory at Denver in the most recent meeting on Jan. 15.