Three Major Flaws Shine in Warriors' Game 5 Loss

The Warriors didn’t just lose against the Grizzlies in Game 5: They got shelled. At one point, Memphis was up by 52 points, and the game turned from an anticipated knockout punch to a statement that the young Grizz wouldn’t go down despite injury from Ja Morant.

There were a myriad of things that went wrong with this game. Some suspect foul-calling on the offensive end, a couldn’t-miss night from the team they were supposed to defend, and the homecourt advantage coming up strong were the factors that were out of Golden State’s control. There were, however, a number of things that went wrong which the Warriors will need to patch up if they want to win Game 6 and prevent themselves from another disastrous comeback scenario. This loss was as much in their hands as it was out, and it revealed plenty of potential issues which will need to be improved on.

1) Turnovers
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Despite all of their excellent play, the Warriors have always had one fatal flaw which teams expose them for constantly: Turning the ball over. The stats will paint them as coughing up the rock only above the average of NBA teams, but watching a game is enough to know these turnovers come at the worst times. A squad like the Grizzlies, with their speed and athleticism, can exploit mistakes on offense easily to build up leads. That’s exactly what happened tonight. A six-play sequence where the Warriors turned it over three times and the Grizzlies scored on all three trips back in the 2nd quarter made the game look far out of reach. The Warriors got buried in transition as a result, and the remaining teams in the playoffs certainly aren’t going to let them get away with it.

2) Foul Trouble
As mentioned, there was some interesting refereeing going on here. The Warriors received a few offensive calls which are usually no-calls. They were just debatable enough to where there was possibly a foul but also not enough to where it was actually foul, and the call went against the Warriors each time. However, the Warriors also fouled far too much. This has been a recent trend, and it’s a sign of both discipline issues and carelessness, much like can be attributed to the first problem. The difference here is that at least there’s enough reason to get mad if it was just refs BS. Some calls in question tonight just looked like the Grizz were the vets being challenged by the young guns. The Warriors were far too jumpy and ended up sending Memphis to the line far more times than turnovers produced immediate points for the opposition.

3) Energy and Effort
This one was a bit more subtle, but it also makes a ton of sense. The Warriors were the lead rebounding team in each of their matchups this series, except for tonight. The Memphis bigs like Steven Adams, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Brandon Clarke dominated the boards and created a fearsome presence in the paint. It clearly worked too, because the Warriors would refuse to put any rim pressure on and ended up just sailing threes the entire game, which allowed the Grizzlies to have their big man get to the ball; not even because they were bigger, but because they wanted it more. Looney, Draymond, and Wiggins, who were all major contributors in winning the battle on the glass, didn’t show up the same today. While rebounding was the primary issue, there’s also plenty of other energy-related issues. This team thinks they can coast against an opponent that went 20-5 without their best player. The Grizzlies are a real threat, and the Warriors being too “Cavalier” with them could spell doom.

Game 6 will be back on Golden State’s turf at the Chase Center, where the Warriors will have another chance to close this series out. Barring another explosion from Memphis and praying for some half-decent play from anybody besides the Splash Brothers, that will be the likely result. It will be key to see if Steve Kerr or Mike Brown if necessary come up with more plays to run through Steph Curry as opposed to the bread-and-butter weak side motion movements they usually opt for.

(Photo credit: Joe Murphy / Getty Images)