The Warriors were beaten by the Suns 134 to 105 tonight, giving up a 70-point half for the 3rd straight game. The team now sits at 2 wins and 2 losses in their first four, and despite some excellent offense through the beginning (including 30 points per game from Stephen Curry and a top-5 team points per game amongst the whole league), there’s been a bit of an obvious mark on where the Dubs have been lacking.

Defensively, the Warriors don’t look all the way there. They currently have a 115 defensive rating, which would rank them in the bottom half of the NBA. As mentioned prior, they’ve given up 70 points in the first half in their last 3 games. Most of the damage came in the first frame, as Phoenix got out to a hot start.

The only game this hasn’t been an issue was the opener against the Lakers, where Los Angeles put up only 52 points in the first half. They are also, however, currently the league’s worst offense by what seems to be a country mile. 40 from the Nuggets, 34 from the Kings, and 37 from the Suns… All before the end of the first quarter in their last 3 games.

The main problem on display tonight was the communication. This is a group of players who isn’t quite used to running sets together outside of a practice environment, despite many of them being on the team last year. Not a lot of them have game experience as a unit, and with Steve Kerr sorting lineups like puzzle pieces looking for good fits, that’s likely to be a consistent issue. But at the same time, there’s plenty of personnel issues with it.

“There’s just a lack of intensity, physicality, whatever you want to call it” Steve Kerr said after the game tonight. “We’ve given up 70 points in halves three games in a row. I don’t think that’s ever happened to the Warriors.”

Another problem that’s been prevalent is James Wiseman’s lack of experience. The Suns scored 62 points in the paint while Wiseman was splitting minutes with Kevon Looney at center (and some minutes went to Draymond Green with smaller lineups as well). Wiseman was the worst of the group at -19, and there were a lot of moments early on where he just didn’t look like he could handle Deandre Ayton, nor did he make the right reads, rotations, recoveries, and the little things that come with general experience. Wiseman’s defensive potential has shown often enough to where it can likely be trusted long term, but he needs to clean up his nuances instead of just swatting shots. Jordan Poole hasn’t helped much either, with a few lapses of his own, but has at least shown some measurable improvement.

On the bright side, this stretch has been an impressive one for Moses Moody. The 2nd-year guard posted 3 blocks against the Suns tonight, and played some great isolation defense against their star in Devin Booker. He showed some adaptability as well, switching out onto the smaller and quicker Chris Paul at times. He’s been solid to start the season, showing he can serve as a playable rotation piece against a lot of different matchups. He was drafted in part for his defensive aptitude despite being only 20 years old, and he’s been worth the lottery pick the Warriors used to get him last year.

While the game against the Suns was a lopsided affair when it came to the refereeing, including free throw disparities that almost outweighed the point differentials between the two teams at the end of the first half and the third quarter, there are some obvious wholes which need to be patched. Some of that is a lack of scheming variety from Kerr’s part, as the defense has been relatively simple instead of utilizing shifting coverages which he’s become known for. But even that is a symptom of a team that needs more experience from the bench on down. It’ll be important to see how the Warriors respond to this stretch to open their season, and how that changes as we get away from a struggling start.

Golden State next plays the Miami Heat on Thursday, October 27th. The Heat have struggled as well to open up their season, going just 1-3 so far, and will be on the second half of a back-to-back against a Portland Trailblazers team that looks quite a bit better than they were initially predicted to be. It could serve as a good “right the ship” game for the formerly-vaunted Warriors defense.

(Photo credit: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)