Golden State played like they had nothing left to play for in their 118-99 Game 6 loss to Sacramento on Friday.
The away team had the chance to advance to the second round but now they will have to head back to Golden 1 Center and fight to keep their postseason alive.
Golden State shooting guard Klay Thompson was visibly disappointed after the loss but told reporters they will come back strong in Game 7.
“When I said that was the best win of the season – Game 5, that was probably the worst loss of the season but there’s no time to hang our heads,” Thompson said.
“I didn’t play very well tonight – three turnovers, -28 is awful. Luckily for us we still have another crack at it. I still have absolute belief in this team that we can go get it done on the road. It will be a tall task but we are up for it and I know we will respond.”
The Warriors finished the night with only 20 total assists and turned the ball over 19 times, which led to 23 of the Kings’ points.
The Dubs even struggled to shoot free throws as they missed 10 of their 35 attempts.
“I thought the Kings were the aggressor from the start, you know, putting a lot of pressure on us defensively and we didn’t execute early in the game,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said postgame.
“There were four, five plays early where we just took quick shots and didn’t pass the ball to the one guy and I think at halftime we had eight assists, so we just never got our rhythm, we never got into our game but I give Sacramento the credit for that. They came out with more force, more energy and they executed better so the right team won, that’s for sure.”
Even their best player, Steph Curry struggled with his shooting as he scored 29 points from the 21 shots he took. He also missed a rare three free throws and turned the ball over five times – which is almost unheard of for the prolific shooter.
The Kings introduced a smaller lineup and Warriors big man Kevon Looney said that it affected his team “just because it was a new lineup we haven’t seen in this series and had to make some adjustments how were going to guard it and guard the pick-and-roll and different things like that.”
The Dubs will get a chance to redeem themselves in Game 7 or the Kings will get all the glory and advance to the second round of the playoffs. Game 7 will go down on Sunday, April 30 at 12:30PM PT.
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