Warriors find there's no replacement for Steph Curry, as 38-point loss in San Antonio shows

SAN ANTONIO – Two nights earlier, Golden State Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg sat on a bench in Houston and closed his eyes as a new world unfurled beyond the blackness. His NBA existence, for 12 games, had been devoted to supporting teammate Stephen Curry. But Curry had winced, and grimaced, and grabbed at a torn oblique, and walked off the floor to an indefinite absence. Lendeborg is who remained.

Warriors teammates, late in the first quarter against the Rockets, told Lendeborg he needed to step up. They knew he could. They'd seen it. So Lendeborg meditated for a moment, there at the Toyota Center, and tried to tell himself he could. 

I gotta do this, he recalled thinking, later. I am able to do this. I am good enough.

"Just positive self-talk," Lendeborg said Friday morning, hours before a 123-85 loss to the Spurs in San Antonio. "That usually helps me out."
"And if it doesn't," the 24-year-old continued, with full transparency, "I'm kinda gonna be f-ed the rest of the game."

It helped in Houston. It didn't help in San Antonio, this night. His own anticipated outcome did, in fact, occur.

Hope up and flew away, the second Curry's soles left the tarmac in San Antonio and boarded an early jet back to the Bay Area. He is set for at least a couple weeks of rehabilitation with Warriors director of performance Rick Celebrini, trying to heal a torn oblique with expedited caution. And Golden State – with Lendeborg and 23-year-old Brandin Podziemski trying to lead the charge – looked like a team whose season had frozen in time without him.

Spurs 123, Warriors 85

Percentages: FG .333, FT .727.

3-Point Goals: 15-41, .366 (Cryer 6-11, Podziemski 2-5, Melton 2-6, Leons 1-2, Niang 1-2, Richard 1-2, Ike 1-3, Santos 1-3, Horford 0-1, Green 0-2, Lendeborg 0-2, Payton II 0-2).

Team Rebounds: 10. Team Turnovers: 1.

Blocked Shots: 5 (Ike, Lendeborg, Melton, Podziemski, Santos).

Turnovers: 13 (Bassey 3, Lendeborg 3, Green 2, Richard 2, Ike, Payton II, Santos).

Steals: 4 (Cryer, Green, Ike, Melton).

Technical Fouls: None.

Percentages: FG .484, FT .739.

3-Point Goals: 14-43, .326 (Castle 5-8, Barnes 3-6, Bryant 2-6, Johnson 2-6, Harper 1-3, Champagnie 1-5, McLaughlin 0-1, Wembanyama 0-2, Fox 0-3, Vassell 0-3).

Team Rebounds: 8. Team Turnovers: 2.

Blocked Shots: 7 (Kornet 2, Wembanyama 2, Castle, Champagnie, McLaughlin).

Turnovers: 9 (Fox 2, Johnson 2, Wembanyama 2, Barnes, Castle, Champagnie).

Steals: 7 (Reed Jr. 2, Fox, Harper, Johnson, McLaughlin, Wembanyama).

Technical Fouls: None.

A: 18,849 (18,581).

They looked like a team, actually, that had completely forgotten how to play basketball. In a literally unprecedented development in franchise history, the Warriors were blitzed 18-0 to start by San Antonio, the most unanswered points surrendered by Golden State to start a game since the play-by-play tracking era began in 1997-98. 

It didn't help they walked into an ambush at the Frost Bank Center, against a young Spurs team that operates like an organized pack of sharks with katanas strapped to their dorsal fins. Ascending face-of-the-NBA Victor Wembanyama played 15 first-half minutes; the Warriors tallied a total of 14 points in the first quarter.

"Wemby's like 7-foot-10?" Lendeborg questioned pregame, half-joking, when asked the tallest player he's ever faced. 

It's 7-foot-4, actually. But he might as well have been. Every single Warrior who stepped on the floor during Wembanyama's minutes – save for a silver-line-weaving LJ Cryer, who dropped a career-high 20 points – looked utterly uninterested in attacking the rim. In the third quarter, Warriors forward Gui Santos turned the corner on an open lane, saw Wembanyama lurking in the paint, suddenly picked up his dribble and found the nearest open Warrior, and De'Anthony Melton air-balled a three. Copy-paste that sequence, for most of the night.

A year ago, Curry walked into San Antonio and dropped 46 and 49 points in two wins across three nights, his individual brilliance enough to lift the Warriors over a deeper and fresher and quicker team. Without him, the Warriors' system visibly imploded. Second-year catch-and-shoot wing Will Richard curled off a dribble handoff for a strange elbow jumper, and Melton and Cryer fired up a few in-between floaters with no better option, and Draymond Green looked lost offensively without his pick-and-roll mate, eventually charging in to knock over Wembanyama for a second-quarter flagrant foul that appeared to carry little purpose.

This was a remarkably unfavorable draw, in the first game of a Curry absence that could reasonably stretch a ways into December. Chalk it up to the Wemby Effect, sure. But glaring alarm bells emerged with Lendeborg's ability to adjust to a mental reality as Golden State's No. 1 option – and adjust to defenses treating him as such.

After 12 games of head-hunting defenders and letting step-back threes fly without much hesitation, Lendeborg looked hesitant to find his own shot in the first half with San Antonio often sending multiple bodies in his direction. In the second half, when trying to generate offense, he looked completely out of sync, finishing 1-for-13 for three points and three turnovers in a -40 stint in 23 minutes of game action.

"Probably six out of 10," Lendeborg said at shootaround, asked his comfort level with stepping in as Golden State's No. 1 option. "It's like – it'll be fun. Just trying to figure out what ways I can score best, or what I gotta do to be able to be an efficient scorer. And then the other four is like, ‘Man, am I going to be able to live up to it and be able to help out the team the way I want to?' But, you know, time will tell."

Time offered a sharp reality check on Friday. And in an equally pressing issue, Podziemski looked utterly out of whack from tip-off, unable to generate much chemistry in replacing Curry in two-man action with Green and frequently picking up his dribble without a decisive move to the rim. 

Podziemski finished 2-for-10, and no other Warriors starter could generate a lick of offense. Golden State took 10 shots between the restricted area and the 3-point line in the first quarter (and went 0-for-10), and attempted just two shots at the rim. The starters went 4-for-27 from the floor in the first half. 

And a joyous early eight-game win streak, persisting and prevailing just a handful of days ago, felt like a distant memory in San Antonio.

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This article originally published at Warriors find there's no replacement for Steph Curry, as 38-point loss in San Antonio shows.

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