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Kendra Andrews, ESPN
MINNEAPOLIS — Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry watched from the bench as his team took blow after blow from the Minnesota Timberwolves in the fourth quarter of their eventual 114-110 loss on Sunday night.
He was ready — he was expecting — to come back in. But he remained on the bench for 11 straight minutes.
After being subbed out of the game with four minutes left in the third quarter, Curry didn’t re-enter until just over six minutes left in the fourth. He gave them a push, but the damage was already done.
“I want to play as many minutes as I’m fresh and able to, so I’m a little bit [surprised] knowing that they were going on a run,” said Curry, who ended up playing just 30 minutes. “Our lead was withering away.”
Curry scored 31 points on 9-of-21 shooting in his 30 minutes, including five 3-pointers. Golden State was plus-6 in the minutes Curry was on the court, and minus-10 when he wasn’t.
But Warriors coach Steve Kerr isn’t willing to blame this most recent loss on Curry’s minutes.
“We can’t expect to just ride Steph game after game after game,” Kerr said. “We’ve put the burden of this franchise on his shoulders for 15 years. We can’t expect him to play 35 minutes … If you want to say that him playing 30 minutes instead of 32 is a difference between a win and a loss, I totally disagree with that. We’re trying to win the game. And we’re trying to keep him fresh, too.”
Against the Indiana Pacers on Friday — a game in which the Warriors struggled to find any urgency or connectivity — Curry played 35 minutes, including the entirety of the fourth quarter.
“I played the whole fourth quarter against Indiana and it didn’t work out, this didn’t work out [against Minnesota]. We’ve got to find somewhere in the middle,” Curry said.
He added: “The situation will define itself in real-time. Every game matters as we’re inching closer to the other end of the standings we never thought we would be in. No one is going to wave the white flag and say we are mailing it in. If that means playing more minutes, I’ll be ready to do that.”
Just two weeks ago, the Golden State Warriors were motivated to work their way out of the play-in tournament to secure themselves a top-6 seed. But now, as Curry alluded to, their hopes for just the 10-seed are hanging on by a thread. They sit one game up on the Houston Rockets — one of the hottest teams in the league right now, riding an eight-game win streak.
Golden State is two games back on the Los Angeles Lakers for the nine spot.
Earlier in the week, Curry said he didn’t care as much about where the Warriors finished in the play-in race, just that they spent the last handful of games of the regular season building habits that will allow them to survive and advance into the playoffs.
“What Steph is saying is if we don’t build the habits, it doesn’t matter,” Kerr said. “You make the play-in, you don’t, if you don’t have the habits you’re not going anywhere.”
Heading into Sunday’s matchup, the most glaring habits that needed fixing were energy and focus. Those were most problematic in transition defense, shot selection, physicality and communication against the Pacers.
They all fall under what the Warriors categorize as “stays” — where someone doesn’t crash the boards or sprint back on defense. Instead, they just stand there.
The Warriors feel that their habits were improved a lot against the Timberwolves. Kerr went as far as to say if his team competes like they did in Minnesota through the last 12 games, they’ll put themselves in a position to do something.
However, there is one caveat: the improvement didn’t lead to a win. Because of that, Draymond Green said Sunday’s performance shouldn’t serve as a glimmer of hope.
“We keep losing,” Green said. “That’s not encouraging.”