Without Morrow or ability to make shots, Warriors fall to Thunder

Stephen Curry scored a career-high 22 points for the Warriors.

Associated Press

Bad weather and delayed flights were legitimate and unfortunate reasons why the Warriors' Anthony Morrow didn't make it back from the funeral of a family member to Oklahoma City for Monday's game. But what's the excuse for the missing offense and energy?

The Warriors scored their fewest points of the season and didn't seem overly interested for most of the game in a 104-88 loss to the Thunder. And although Morrow is the team's third-leading scorer, he also missed Saturday's game and there was no shortage of points there.

First, the ugly numbers:

-- The 88 points were two fewer than their previous low in the 118-90 loss to the Clippers.

-- The 18 points they scored in the third quarter were tied for second fewest in a quarter this year.

-- They scored 39 points in the second half, their fewest in any half this year and fewer than they've scored in a couple quarters this season.

-- The loss was their season-high fourth straight and sixth in seven games. They also fell to 2-9 on the road.

-- Monta Ellis had nine turnovers for the second time in three games, giving him 25 in that span. In the last eight games, he's averaged 6.6 turnovers per game.

-- Ellis led the team with 31 points on 12-of-28 shooting. Stephen Curry scored a career-high 22 on 9-of-14 shooting (so glad to see him knock down some shots). The rest of the team combined for 35 points on 12-of-34 shooting. They threw up at least four air-balls.

-- The Warriors were outrebounded 57-37 and 15-3 (three!) on the offensive end.

-- And finally, they had 20 turnovers and 12 assists.

Add them all up, and it's a bad way to start a five-game road trip.

Some other observations:

-- After having the best game of his career, Anthony Randolph was back to being a non-factor. On Saturday, he came in full of energy and life and forced the action, scoring a career-high 28 points on 23 shots in 35 minutes. Against the Thunder? Four points, six shots, seven rebounds in 25 minutes. For the game, his +/- number was -26. What happened? Maybe this is why coach Don Nelson is so frustrated with Randolph and can't give him heavy minutes every night. Nelson's game plan on Saturday was to use Randolph to initiate the offense and neutralize Dwight Howard by taking him away from the basket. The Thunder don't have one single shot-blocker in the post so the plan had to be different Monday. But did Keith Smart's plan not include Randolph at all?

-- Speaking of Smart, he called quick timeouts at the start of the game and the start of the second half. While Nelson generally lets his players try to work through their problems, Smart wants to stop the action and address what's going on. His first timeout was just 53 seconds into the game after an Ellis turnover and Curry almost dribbling the ball out of bounds. The Warriors woke up and eight minutes into the game had a nine-point lead. In the third quarter, the Thunder went on a 7-0 run to take a six-point lead and Smart again called timeout less than two minutes into the quarter. The results were not the same as the Warriors finished just 5-of-16 shooting in the quarter that ended with them down 12. Both timeouts were good calls by Smart as he needed to stop the action and try to re-focus his team. It also shows he has his own way of thinking that obviously differs from Nelson and he's not afraid to shake things up. In fact, he changed the team routine completely to start the trip, arriving in Oklahoma City on Sunday and going through the team walk-through that night rather than the next morning as is tradition. He said he thought the Warriors' slow starts on the road might be attributed to players being tired due to time zone changes and "early" walk-throughs. Monday morning/early afternoon, they held their meetings and talked about what they saw Sunday night. The change didn't necessarily work, but again Smart showed he's willing to go out on his own and make changes as he sees fit.

-- One thing Smart did/said that was questionable was his desire to slow the pace of the game. In his post-game remarks, Smart pointed out that the Thunder were 8-0 when scoring more than 100 points so he wanted to slow the game down and liked the tempo of the first half that ended with the Thunder leading 50-49. The Warriors are not a half-court team. Their strength is running and passing and hustling. Slowing the game down just fed into the bigger Thunder's hand and eventually disintegrated into that one-on-five mentality where players stand around in the half-court set and watch teammates dribble the ball. That, combined with their inability to hit any open jumpers, spelled doom.

-- Whether the coach is to blame for this or not, the Warriors have to know their opponent. The Thunder are not a good 3-point shooting team (even Durant, who likes to take them but usually misses them) and didn't want to take long-range shots even when they had them. Still, the Warriors played wild, chasing defense, flying out at "shooters" at the 3-point line, none of whom appeared to want to shoot in the first place. With defenders scrambling around, the Thunder moved the ball and got better shots. More importantly, Warriors defenders were out of position to rebound and the Thunder dominated in second-chance points.

-- In the second quarter, Curry got called for traveling when he tried to make an outlet pass on a potential fast break. Curry got the ball and as he was about to dribble, he saw an open man streaking down the court. He just couldn't get the pass off as quickly as he saw the play developing in his mind and got caught between dribbling and passing. Several of Curry's turnovers seem to come in similar situations. He sees things faster than he can act. Passing lanes look open, but by the time he can deliver the ball, they're closed. Hopefully this is just a rookie adjustment that needs to be made to the speed of the game and quickness of the defenders.

-- When Corey Maggette got ejected with 4:07 left in the third quarter, the score was 63-62 Thunder.  The Warriors were outscored 41-26 the rest of the game, including the four quick free throws. Maggette was arguing after getting called for a foul on a Russell Westbrook drive. And although Maggette refused to discuss the ejection after the game, it's likely the foul called less than a minute earlier when he and Nick Collison got tangled up had a lot to do with his frustration, which seemed apparent from the moment he walked on the court. Already in the Warriors fans' doghouse, how will something like this play when the team returns home?

-- Give Ellis credit for his defense, again. The slight 6-3 guard matched up against Durant, a 6-9 forward who is third in the league in scoring. Durant did get his 28 points, but shot 9-of-24 from the field and had six turnovers. Also, Ellis blocked a Durant shot from the low block with about five minutes left in the game (after playing all 43 minutes up to that point). Who knew Ellis was a defensive stopper?

-- Since his 20-point game against Houston, Vladimir Radmanovic is 4-of-18 for 12 points.

--  Devean George saw his first action of the year, grabbing two rebounds while playing the final six minutes.

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