MY ACCOUNT
Steve Kerr claimed the Golden State Warriors defense has been “bad for six or seven games” after his team lost 119-104 to the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Warriors are 42-16 for the season with a 72.4 win percentage, but they have now lost three of their last four games, having gone on a nine-game winning streak prior to that.
Kerr questioned his team’s defensive work before Monday’s loss, yet that did not help the Warriors against the Clippers, who scored 54 points from in the paint.
After the defeat, Kerr did not hold back in his criticism.
“I was doing a lot of yelling,” Kerr told reporters. “The main thing is that our defense has been bad. It’s been bad for six or seven games now. It’s hard to win in this league when you’re looking like we are, defensively, with so many holes in our games.
“They went right around us. It’s been something different every night.
“When you can’t count on the connection defensively and the competitiveness and the fire, every night is going to be a little different depending on what talent you’re going against.”
Despite their recent troubles, the Warriors still have the second-best defensive record in the Western Conference when it comes to points allowed per game, with only the Dallas Mavericks (103.1) allowing fewer than Golden State (103.5).
However, Kerr believes that the statistic is skewed because of the Warriors’ strong start to the season.
“I know we are number one in defense,” he said, making air quote signs. “But we’re not right now. Those numbers are inflated by what we did earlier in the season.
“Over the last seven games, we are probably bottom five, if not dead last in defensive rating.
“It’s up to us. We’re going to have to find the effort, the communication, connection, to get back to doing the things we were doing before.”
Kerr has a point. The Warriors have allowed 113.3 points per game over the last seven games, while so far in February, their opponents are averaging 51.4 points in the paint.
That has seen the Warriors drop from the fourth-best team in the league to fifth defensively in the paint for the season, and over the seven-game span this month they sit in 21st place in that aspect.
