https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/annkillion/article/warriors-face-dynastic-threat-kings-game-7-17925913.php

After the Golden State Warriors’ stirring Game 5 victory in Sacramento on Wednesday night, guard Klay Thompson declared it the best win of the season.

“This,” Thompson said Friday after the Warriors’ dreadful Game 6 performance, “is probably the worst loss of the season.

“But there’s no time to hang our heads.”

No, no time at all. By the time the Warriors iced and showered and ate and straggled out of Chase Center after their 118-99 loss to the bouncy and resilient Kings, they had only about 36 hours until they would have to be back on the court at Golden 1 Center for warm-ups.

A dynasty hangs in the balance in a Game 7 on Sunday in Sacramento. The Warriors, for only the second time under head coach Steve Kerr, will play a Game 7 on the road.

“We put ourselves in a situation where we have to be the team that’s playing with desperation,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. “Obviously, on the road in a Game 7, there’s a belief that we can do that.”

The Warriors have a wealth of playoff experience. But they find themselves in this desperate situation because they have done so many things that have run counter to most of their dynasty’s track record. Beginning with being so, so terrible on the road this season that they ended up a No. 6 seed and don’t have home-court advantage.
Friday’s setback was only their second playoff loss ever at Chase; the first was Game 1 of the NBA Finals last year. It was only the fourth time they failed to win a close-out game on their home court. The other times were Game 5 of a first-round playoff series against the Clippers in 2019 and the historic Games 5 and 7 Finals losses to Cleveland in 2016.

So, this is relatively uncharted territory.

“Everybody is down right now,” Kerr said. “The game just ended. This is all part of it. We’ve been through everything. We’ve won a Game 7 on the road before. We know we can do it, but we’ve got to regroup and kind of fill up the cup and get our energy ready for Sunday afternoon.”

The Game 7 that Kerr referenced was against Houston in 2018, when Curry and Kevin Durant combined for 61 points and the Rockets infamously missed 27 consecutive 3-point attempts.

What can these Warriors take from that long-ago game?

“There’s only a few guys on this team that were in that scenario,” Curry said. “Every possession is important, how you start, how you think your way through the game, staying locked in. … But it’s more so just the competitive spirit. You don’t overthink it.”

The Kings were the ones who brought the competitive spirit to Chase on Friday. They were loose but they were also composed. They were, as Kerr said, the aggressors.

Maybe it was because of the tip time — a strange 5 p.m. start due to ESPN wanting the game in its primary slot across the country — or because of the quick turnaround between Games 5 and 6, but the overall energy was low. The energy in the building was depressed and the Warriors’ miscues never allowed it to build, never got their fans fully involved.

“We just had a lot of mental errors, and they took advantage of them and grabbed momentum early,” Curry said. “I don’t know if that was an energy or a focus thing or whatever it is. But you have to learn those lessons quick.”

The Warriors committed the two sins Kerr has been emphasizing avoiding: they were outrebounded, and they turned the ball over way too much — their 18 turnovers led to 23 Kings points.

They had a bad shooting night — hitting just 10 of 32 3-pointers and shooting 37.2 percent from the field. They missed 10 free throws. Kings head coach Mike Brown’s tactical countermoves rendered Warriors center Kevon Looney far less effective than he had been in previous games.

The dynastic trio that carried the team to victory in Game 5 did not play well on Friday night. Game 6 Klay didn’t show up: Thompson was minus-28 and finished with 22 points. Curry missed seven 3-pointers and turned the ball over five times. Green, who had been so effective off the bench in Games 4 and 5, was far less so in Game 6 with just four points and four rebounds, and was in early foul trouble.

And Jordan Poole’s insertion into the starting lineup in Green’s place backfired badly on Friday. Poole had a particularly rough night, shooting just 2-for-11 from the floor.

By the end of the game, you could hear chants of “Light the Beam” in the emptying Chase Center.

The aging Lakers blew out the brash Grizzlies — the Warriors seemed amused by the score of that game as it played in their locker room — and will be waiting to head somewhere in Northern California for a Tuesday night series start.

The Warriors, in contrast, missed their chance to take care of business at home. Now they will have to go into a crazed, hostile road environment, on a quick turnaround and try to stave off all the questions about their future with a win.

“It’s up to us to go to Sacramento and do everything we did tonight, but opposite,” Thompson said. “I know we will respond. I know these guys. I’ve played at the highest level with them, and I know what we are capable of.

“We will respond like the champions we are, come Sunday.”

We know it’s possible. We’ve seen it before.