The Golden State Warriors were 12.5-point favorites when the injury-depleted Phoenix Suns visited Chase Center on Tuesday night.
Stephen Curry was back on the floor after missing time with a shoulder injury, and the Dubs were nearly at full strength.
The Suns were missing Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Cam Johnson, and Cameron Payne, so most expected this to be a cakewalk for the reigning champs.
Instead, they trailed by as many as 27 points and wound up losing by 12 at home.
Notably, Klay Thompson believes they didn’t take the Suns seriously, but he thinks his team can bounce back from that.
“We relaxed a little bit more than we should. We thought we would show up and get the dub,” Thompson said. “Sometimes, you need a loss like this to remind yourself how hard it is to win in this league, and I think we can turn this into a positive.”
https://twitter.com/NBCSWarriors/status/1613070404175953924
Coach Steve Kerr agreed with Thompson and took the blame for not having his team ready to perform at the peak of their standards:
“I take responsibility for that,” Kerr said. “I clearly didn’t have our guys ready to play and that’s my fault. I’ve got to do a better job of giving them the slap in the face that Phoenix gave us in the first quarter. These games, they always go like this. A team’s got a bunch of starters out and then all the guys who normally don’t play much, they can’t wait to get out there.”
This is the NBA, there are no scheduled wins or easy games, and the Dubs should know better than that.
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