Warriors’ late comeback falls short in loss to Clippers

LOS ANGELES — So far this season, the Clippers have been a thorn in the Warriors’ sneakers.

Ty Lue’s Clippers have handed the Warriors two of their three losses on the season.

On Monday night in the Intuit Dome, the Clippers shot as well from 3 than the Warriors did from the foul line. Los Angeles forced 19 turnovers, repeating their performance from their first matchup.

An impressive third quarter wasn’t enough to make up for a sloppy first half for the Warriors, who couldn’t send the game into overtime with two late 3-point tries. Golden State (10-3) nearly came back, but ultimately fell, 102-99.

Steph Curry scored a game-high 26 points, outplaying James Harden (12 points, 16 assists), but the Warriors left too many points on the board to steal a win.

“We lost it in the first quarter,” Curry said postgame. “We got into a situation where we were rushing on offense, and I think against the Clippers we’ve had almost 40 turnovers in two games. And you can feel it…It does say that we have a lot of grit and a lot of fight to comeback and give ourselves a chance, our defense down the stretch was awesome. But two games in a row against the Clippers, and once against Cleveland — turnovers dictate the momentum early and you kind of leave yourself at the whims of makes and misses down the stretch.

The Clippers caused the Warriors to commit four turnovers in the first five minutes, repeating their disruptive ball pressure from their first meeting. In that Warriors loss, Golden State coughed up a season-high 21 turnovers; they’re 8-0 on the season when committing 15 or fewer.

Sometimes the Warriors were playing too fast, sometimes they misread split actions and sometimes the Clippers deflected interior passes.

Golden State’s bench clawed back from an early 12-point deficit, playing with more pace and force — particularly with Kyle Anderson as the small-ball center. Kevon Looney didn’t make the trip because of an illness, so the Warriors needed Anderson to play up even more than usual.

Beyond the turnovers that hurt them in the possession battle, the Warriors left points on the board from the foul line. Jonathan Kuminga missed his first three free throws, and Trayce Jackson-Davis went 0-for-2 in his first trip against “The Wall,” the Intuit Dome’s fan section. Wall or not, the Warriors rank dead last in the league in free throw percentage and shot 9-for-19 in Monday’s game.

When the Warriors’ starters returned halfway through the second quarter, they immediately ceded an 11-2 run. Steve Kerr called a timeout when Los Angeles’ lead grew to 50-36. At that point, the Clippers had hit nine of their 15 3-pointers.

After he hit his second 3 of the night, Draymond Green set an illegal screen for the Warriors’ 13th turnover of the first half.

“You can’t defend those turnovers,” Green said postgame. “I was awful.”

Then Norman Powell (23 points) blew by Jonathan Kuminga for a buzzer-beating layup. The Warriors walked into the visitor’s locker room for halftime down 11.

“I didn’t feel like we really started playing until the second half,” Kerr said. “I thought we lost the game in the first half, wasting a lot of possessions.”

Curry and the Warriors refocused their decision-making in the second half. After scoring eight points in the first half, he hunted shots to start the third quarter. Curry nailed a trio of 3s in the span of four minutes, inching the Warriors within five points. The third came off a handoff from Jackson-Davis in the corner, with Curry falling out of bounds as he released.

Kuminga, Anderson and the bench finished the quarter strong after Curry and Green exited, tying the game at 72. The league’s best third-quarter team won the period 27-19. They cut down on their turnovers and strung stops together.

Carrying that momentum into the fourth proved difficult. The Clippers were prepared to counter the Warriors’ pushes. Powell answered Lindy Waters III’s 3 with one of his own, keeping Los Angeles’ lead at seven.

Even when Curry dropped in a rainbow 3 and snaked inside for a finger roll, Harden and Powell answered with five points of their own. Then the Warriors reverted to the first half, turning it over three times in a two-minute span.

The Warriors stayed in it. Los Angeles went to the clogged toilet offense, with James Harden and Norman Powell dribbling out the shot clock aimlessly. Curry and Wiggins scored seven straight points, turning a 10-point deficit into three.

But with a chance to send the game into overtime, Curry and Gary Payton II each missed 3-pointers. Kerr said the officials didn’t hear him try to call a timeout during the play to draw something up, but he was proud of Payton for letting a shot fly.  The Warriors just couldn’t crack through.