The Golden State Warriors begin a home-friendly portion of their schedule Saturday night when they host the Brooklyn Nets in San Francisco.
The Chase Center court was not kind to Golden State early in the season when the Warriors won just one of their first seven home games.
They stayed afloat in the Western Conference by winning five of their first six on the road.
But things have flipped both home and away for the Warriors of late. Their 121-113 road loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday night was their seventh in a row on the road. At the same time, they’ve won four straight at home.
Add that up and you get a 13-11 disparity in road games over home games, but that’s about to flip as well. Golden State gets 11 of its next 13 games at home, with the only flights being relatively short ones to Portland and Denver for overnighters.
Warriors fans likely will get their first look at a new starting lineup, which, of course, does not include suspended Draymond Green.
Surprisingly, Golden State coach Steve Kerr made another change in Los Angeles, promoting rookie Brandin Podziemski to the spot previously occupied by struggling Andrew Wiggins.
“Changes were necessary,” Warriors star Stephen Curry explained, “and when you are a team that’s struggling to find our identity and trying to find momentum (and) win basketball games consistently, you have to experiment. You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.”
The results remained the same — a third straight loss — but the Warriors might have found something in Podziemski, who followed up a 20-point, 11-rebound effort off the bench Tuesday at Phoenix with four points, seven rebounds, two assists and three steals in his first start.
Wiggins, meanwhile, also responded relatively well. After having been held to a total of 24 points on 8-for-30 shooting in three games since slamming his right index finger in a car door, he shot 4-for-9 and had nine points in 22 minutes in the first regular-season appearance of his career off the bench.
The Nets will be looking for a second win in four outings on their five-game Western swing, having won at Phoenix on Wednesday in between losses at Sacramento and Denver.
Thursday’s 124-101 loss in Colorado came on the second night of a back-to-back, following the 116-112 victory over the Suns.
Brooklyn coach Jacque Vaughn was willing to give his guys a mulligan in the high altitude of Denver.
“I don’t like to use excuses, but I told my group I thought our intent was good coming into the game,” he observed. “We just didn’t have it (against) a team that was rested and ready for us. Tough back-to-back, the emotional/mental part of it. Just didn’t have it.”
One positive from a game that was 90-67 after three quarters was that Vaughn was able to empty the bench in the final period. All seven Brooklyn reserves played at least 14 minutes, while no starter was extended past 27.
The Nets swept last season’s two-game season series over the Warriors but have not won two straight at Golden State since 2004 and ’05.
–Field Level Media
