Rewind: Despite win, Warriors ‘got to clean some stuff up'

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OAKLAND –- Muttering under their breath and punching their fists into their palms, the Warriors walked out of Oracle Arena and into the cool night frowning in triumph.

Their 115-110 win over Toronto was good enough to cherish but hardly fine enough to truly relish.

Life is good for certain when you’re in the midst of a season-opening, 12-game win streak yet you yearn to be better, as these Warriors do.

So there was Klay Thompson, slightly pleased with his 18-point first half but pacing the postgame locker room, jaws clenched in frustration over his 1-point second.

There was Andrew Bogut casting a critical eye and Draymond Green looked as if he wanted a do-over and Steph Curry shaking his head over miscues that put the Warriors at the doorstep of defeat.

“We don’t feel that we played great tonight,” Bogut said.

[RATTO: Warriors now playing against toughest opponent: Themselves]

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“We hold ourselves to a very high standard,” Curry said. “In timeouts and in postgame, we’re talking about those things we need to clean up. We didn’t put any pressure on them, defensively, in the third quarter. We were sloppy on a couple possessions, offensively, and gave them life. Those are things we need to improve on.”

The Warriors blew nearly all of an 18-point first-half lead by gazing at the Raptors on offense in the third quarter. DeMarre Carroll and DeMar DeRozan combined to score 21 points on 8-of-11 shooting, serving as the primary forces in cutting Toronto’s deficit to seven (90-83) entering the fourth quarter.

Interim coach Luke Walton generally rests Curry early in the final quarter in hopes of preserving the MVP for the final minutes. Not so on this night, as Curry started the fourth, came out for little more than three minutes and then returned to play the role of primary offensive closer down the stretch.

Part of the reason for Walton’s strategy: Curry’s top backup, Shaun Livingston, was sidelined with a hip flexor strain. The other part of the reason: Walton was hoping Curry could help rebuild that double-digit lead.

“We tried it, it didn’t work and we got him back out there,” Walton said of Curry.

Toronto, however, took a 98-96 lead with 5:50 to play before the Warriors scrambled back, Curry’s 3-pointer with 5:18 to play giving them a lead they never relinquished – even though the Raptors got as close as one in the final minute.

Catastrophe averted, with Curry scoring seven points in the final 88 seconds.

“We made the necessary plays we needed to win the game,” Green said.

“Obviously, we can close the game out a lot better than we did,” he added. “It should have never really gotten to the point that it got to. So I wouldn’t say we did a good job at all. We just made the necessary plays that we needed to make.”

The Warriors were outplayed in the second half, largely because they committed 13 turnovers while being outrebounding 23-12. Both teams shot 48.6 after intermission, but the Raptors were 22-of-29 from the line, while the Warriors were 16-of-22.

“We can play better, and that’s what we’re focused on,” said Curry, who committed seven turnovers, a season-high. “Just to get a win is important in this league. We’re happy about that. We’ve got to clean some stuff up in the second half. A couple turnovers made it a little too easy for them in the third quarter, getting where they wanted to go on the floor. So we’ll look at that.

“But we’re 12-0 . . . everybody likes to learn those lessons in wins . . . but you’ve got to continue to get better, every game, because we have big things in store for us.”

And with that, the Warriors took one and ran with it. There was very little joy amid the relief and grudging acceptance. Undefeated is what they are, even if they didn’t feel so invincible after this one.

Maybe that’s the key to it all, taking every win you can get while searching for the best you have to give.

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