Golden State Warriors 8-man rotation is faulty without Stephen Curry

In a game which they should’ve won, the Golden State Warriors came up short. Taking a small lead into the fourth quarter after being on the better side of a 13-point spread at half, Golden State immediately lost their rhythm at the intermission of the two second-half quarters.

Curry was subbed out as usual, and the Dubs just couldn’t keep up. Draymond Green was re-inserted into the game just to give them a fighting chance while Curry caught his breath. It wasn’t enough as the Lakers lead grew, forcing head coach Steve Kerr‘s hand.

The Golden State Warriors lost the game in the eight minutes that Stephen Curry didn’t play, and that could be a trend that continues to follow them.

Golden State has been hampered by injuries as well, which certainly doesn’t help.

Kelly Oubre Jr. played five games until his injury became too much to handle. There’s hope he could return, but it doesn’t look likely. James Wiseman, who was also on track to being a decent playmaker, went down a few weeks ago. Wiseman is out for the remainder of the season.

Those two have depleted the Warriors’ depth, and their rotation has hurt because of it. On top of those two, add in second-year former First Team All-Rookie forward Eric Paschall missing the bulk of the last month and not having any rhythm to re-join the team with.

Combine those issues, and the Warriors have boiled their rotation down to eight.

However, those eight include second-year guard Jordan Poole and two players, Mychal Mulder and Juan Toscano-Anderson, that wouldn’t be in the league without the Dubs taking a chance on them last season.

Even the starting unit’s players that aren’t named Stephen Curry fail to make plays consistently and efficiently. Kevon Looney and Kent Bazemore are more pieces tossed in to complement Curry and Green.

Everything the Warriors do is centered around Stephen Curry, and that’s where they really can only turn to Andrew Wiggins. Having scored 20-plus points per game in three of his seven seasons, Wiggins did hit that mark against Los Angeles, but he didn’t do much damage when Curry was out.

Curry had a 90-second rest in the second half. In that time, the Lakers went on a 6-0 run. That was it, and the Dubs were playing catch up after that. The first six minutes of the second quarter weren’t too disastrous with Curry on the bench.

But the 90 seconds when the Lakers were in the midst of their comeback hurt the Warriors tremendously. The rotation and the team, in general, just can’t survive long without Curry on the court.

There’s no Klay Thompson right now, so getting big-time shot-making from anyone other than Curry is difficult. That will be a problem, but it’s not one the Dubs can be much about right now.

Their faulty rotation is going to have to suffice, and it was almost enough against the reigning champs.