SAN FRANCISCO – The fear factor that once smoothed their ride to the top faded two years ago and attempts by the Warriors to revive it this season were unsuccessful. So, any success they have beyond the regular season will require overcoming a reputation that grew exponentially in recent weeks.
That despite their impressive record, the Warriors are vulnerable to most any team that competes hard enough and long enough to expose the worst of the Warriors.
Wait for them to anesthetize late, particularly at home, as the Mavericks did on Sunday, and then go take what you want.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
The Warriors were on the doorstep of victory, leading by 19 points with less than 10 minutes remaining when they were shoved off and thrown for a 107-101 loss at Chase Center.
For the Warriors, the end was familiar, mirroring their last home loss, 117-116 to the Nuggets on Feb. 16, insofar as a double-digit lead made it to the fourth quarter before being fumbled away.
“Denver was down 10 the whole game and they found a way,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. “They made a late-game shot to win it. But that’s just the way the game felt there in the second half, if we could just stay around 10, hopefully, we could put some pressure on them. And the pressure was on them. They had the lead the whole game. They dominated.
“But the guys kept playing and kept believing they could find a way to win.”
Golden State Warriors
Find the latest Golden State Warriors news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Bay Area and California.
The Warriors took a 93-74 lead on a layup by Damion Lee with 9:59 remaining but after that were outscored 33-8.
“We just kind of let the momentum get away from us,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “Dallas had all the momentum, and they were jumping around on their bench and our guys were kind of hanging their heads.
“It's a good lesson for us. We've got to understand that NBA games turn on a dime.”
The Warriors over the course of the game missed box-outs and defensive rotations. They missed layups, including one inside the final minute by Stephen Curry. They missed dunks, one by Jonathan Kuminga and another by Gary Payton II. Jordan Poole took seven shots and missed them all.
And, still, the game was there to be had. Until it was gone in Kerr’s latest futile attempts to seek effective late-game rotations in the absences of accomplished veterans Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala.
“This is what it feels like when you're playing against a really good team and the game's never over,” Kerr said. “That's why we stress all the details we do over and over again. That's why we practice everything. We made so many mental mistakes: Fouling coming from the wrong places to foul, not being at the rim in rotation, and when they went small our defense kind of broke down. We let that affect our offense, so we have to learn from that and grow from it.”
There can be an element of danger with such heartbreaking losses, so close together. They can foster, particularly among the younger players, a competitive post-traumatic syndrome, aka Here We Go Again.
“You have to choose to stay confident in your abilities even if rotations are changing,” Curry said. “You might not be living up to the expectations that you put on yourself, how you’re supposed to play. You have to be able to choose confidence and be intentional about that every game. There’s no secret sauce, no magic wand. You have to go through it and ‘man up’ and understand this is the most important part of our season.
“If you get out there, you’ve got to impact the game, bring good energy – and that’s everybody,” Curry added. “It’s not just the young guys. Bring good energy and bring attention to detail on the little things that help you win games. Defensive energy, no matter if you’re making shots or missing shots, you just got to go through it. Whoever’s going to be out there in the playoff rotation that should be the expectation. We don’t want to feel like we do right now and have these last two games at home.”
No losses sting more than those that slip away late. No opponent is braver than one that believes it can take over down the stretch.
“We got it down to 11 at one point and we just couldn’t get over the hump and understanding they're well-coached and they're a great team, they pushed it back up to 15,” Kidd said. “But the guys just kept believing if we could get three stops, also we felt that the crowd kind of got out of the game, the energy wasn’t there, and so we just slowly felt if we just stayed around, watching the last time they played Denver it was very similar."
RELATED: NBA Twitter reacts to Warriors' shocking loss to Luka, Mavs
It’s naïve to assume Kidd is the only coach who recognizes Golden State’s late-game vulnerability and can project it onto his team. Nuggets coach Michael Malone began hacking Kevon Looney and it froze the Warriors. Kidd simply reminded his guys of the Denver game and implored them to trust their effort. It worked.
The word is out. Jump the Warriors, jump them hard. Push them into the kind of anxious moments that lead to mental errors, which are more likely with experimental rotations in play with Green and Iguodala out of the picture.