Things at Golden State aren’t where Stephen Curry would like to them to be, which is why he and his teammates called a player-only meeting ahead of the Warriors’ Christmas Day Game against the Lakers.
Curry himself seemed to be personally inspired by the talk, since he scored his Christmas best of 38 points, but it wasn’t enough to secure a victory.
The storied franchise has now lost 11 of its past 14 games – hence the meeting.
“It is an inflection point on obviously which direction our season can go,” Curry said. (via ESPN). “Our last 14 games, it’s just been tough trying to find any type of momentum or consistency, and through that, you just can’t lose spirit and belief that we’re a good enough team to figure it out because this league is ruthless.
“This league changes from window to window of what you can fall back on, and when you dig yourself a hole like that, sometimes it can be hard to pull out of. So, we’re right in that window where we can still regain some momentum however many weeks before the [All-Star] break are pivotal or else [we are] in a situation where we’re chasing down the stretch. And nobody wants to be there.”
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr also commented on the team’s morale during this tough slump.
“We’re down,” Kerr said. “Everybody’s disappointed. We’ve lost some confidence. You can feel it. We had a great vibe early in the season, and we’re going through it right now.
“But I love our guys, high-character guys. They care. They care about each other. I believe in them. I believe we’re going to get this thing turned around, so this is all part of the season, part of life.”
Kerr, Curry and Draymond Green have said multiple times now that they feel like the Warriors still have what it takes to win and will get out of this slump.
“I still have hope and faith and confidence that we can figure it out,” Curry said. “So, it’s how I’m built. And I feel like you go out there and you talk about it, but how you execute, how you show up on a nightly basis, the effort we’re giving, even considering what our record’s been over the last stretch, it’s a team that’s desperate, trying to figure it out. Just hasn’t gone our way. So yeah, until things change, you got to keep that mentality.”