Dysfunctional Warriors desperately need win over Kings

With mounting injuries, open finger pointing and one of the team's best players just waiting for his ticket out, the Golden State Warriors face as close to a must-win game as you can get in early November.

And this has nothing to do with the playoff picture and the season-long race for the eighth spot. This is about saving a season already on the brink of total disaster. This is about keeping things together just well enough to get those 23 more wins coach Don Nelson needs to set the all-time record and retire to Maui -- for good this time. This is about survival and self respect.

This is about as big as it gets -- and that, in itself, is sad.

The Warriors travel to Sacramento on Sunday to play a Kings team that was generally considered the worst in the league prior to the start of the season -- and that was before they lost leading scorer Kevin Martin for eight weeks with a hairline fracture in his wrist.

The Warriors are coming off a 118-90 home loss to the Clippers on Friday in which they were properly embarrassed by their lack of effort and execution. During the game there was open bickering, a topic that was discussed at practice on Saturday. A story in The Chronicle quotes players talking about teammates accusing each other of not knowing the plays, the need for self reflection and an even bigger need to move on and put Friday's pathetic performance behind them.

And that's why Sunday's game is so huge. It's about more than just losing. The Warriors seem to be one more bad performance away from imploding.

They came into the season thinking they could use an easy early stretch in the schedule to gain confidence and set them up for a run at the playoffs. Instead, they're 1-3 having played only one playoff team from a year ago (and the Houston team they played in the opener was not the Houston team that made the playoffs last year). Sunday's game starts a stretch of 8 out of 10 on the road and while they still have five more games against lottery teams lined up, waiting on the horizon are games against, in order, Cleveland, Boston, Portland, Dallas, San Antonio, L.A. Lakers, Indiana for a breather, Denver, Houston and Orlando.

Stephen Jackson, in his postgame comments Friday, noted that four games into the season, the Warriors are already banged up. They lost Brandan Wright prior to the season and on Friday played without starting center Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf, another big man who started one game and has become a valuable inside presence. Then there's the Anthony Randolph saga in which he's gone from starting power forward to untrusted backup center.

At full strength, maybe the Warriors would be better than 1-3.  Maybe they would know what the plays and wouldn't be fighting. Maybe. But with three big men out, they're left starting insurance backup Mikki Moore at center and having no choice but to rely on guys like Jackson and Corey Maggette to man the post. No wonder tempers are flaring -- they go into these games knowing they're at a disadvantage and need to play almost perfect to win. It's a trying situation to say the least.

The only thing that can help now is to get some wins. And that starts Sunday against the Kings.
 

ALSO:

Jackson in a good mood after latest blowout loss

 Where do Warriors rank in West?