The Warriors had their 48th straight sell out home game, which would have called for quite the celebration; however, the Warriors weren’t able to get the win during Friday’s game against the Houston Rockets—the Rockets won 116-112. Houston has won 18 out of the past 22 matchups including Friday night’s game.
Veteran Marreese Speights had a breakout game for the Warriors. He scored a season high of 16 points against the Rockets—12 of which were during the fourth quarter. David Lee had a team high of 23 points and both Stephen Curry and Harrison Barnes added 20 points each.
It wasn’t the Warriors’ shooting that lost them the game—they shot 48%. However, at times the Splash Brothers lost their “splash”. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson went a combined 2-for-12 on 3-pointers, scoring one each.
Ultimately the they lost Friday night's game because they were sloppy. Golden State turned the ball over too many times and fouled like they had fouls to give. Curry received his fifth foul in the fourth quarter after he blatantly grabbed Donatas Motiejunas while he was shooting. Draymond Green received a flagrant foul for shoving Harden to the ground; and the game ended with Harrison Barnes and Green with five fouls, Thompson and Lee with four fouls and Curry fouled out of the game. Simply put, the Rockets played better than the Warriors.
Not to make excuses but Golden State has also been missing a large part of their lineup. Their backup centers are all injured and have undergone surgery. Ognjen Kuzmic will be out for another six weeks after undergoing surgery on his right hand. Jermaine O’Neal underwent surgery Friday morning to repair a torn ligament in his wrist--he will be out approximately two months. Because all of the Warriors' backup centers are injured, the Warriors picked up Hilton Armstrong in order to fill the void. Let’s not forget that Festus Ezeli is still out after his off-season surgery on his knee.
Arguably the most important player that Golden State has lost to injury is Andre Iguodala (right hamstring injury). Harrison Barnes has done a remarkable job filling the void that Iguodala has left but the sophomore forward doesn’t have nearly as much experience as the All-Star. “Iggy” has missed his 11th straight game and hopes to come back “really soon” but the Warriors trainers seem to have a different return date in mind. Iguodala stated that he and the Warriors are “in the same chapter, not on the same page” in regard to his return date.
The Warriors have been known to be injury prone and this season doesn’t seem to be any different. The Warriors head to Phoenix on Sunday to face PJ Tucker and the Phoenix Suns.
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