In the waning moments of the Warriors’ Thursday night loss to the Denver Nuggets, Eric Paschall connected on a go-ahead basket with about 16 seconds remaining in the regulation. The shot gave the Warriors a 113-111 lead, and it appeared that Steve Kerr’s team was on their way to scoring a major win over a depleted Nuggets team that was playing without a number of its rotation players.
However, what appeared to be a game-winning shot ended up being irrelevant, as Nikola Jokic scored a game-tying basket on the ensuing possession and sent the contest into overtime.
The Nuggets would eventually prevail by a final score of 134-131.
The loss was Golden State’s 10th in a row and their 15th in their last 19 games. For them, this season is all about development, so the team can look forward to a high draft pick this summer and, they hope, a healthy Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson for the 2020-21 season.
Still, it was interesting to learn that Thursday night’s overtime loss was the club’s ninth consecutive time that the team fell in the extra period.
Golden State hasn’t emerged victorious from an overtime game since December 18, 2017. On that day, they secured a 116-114 victory over their division foe, the Los Angeles Lakers.
Since then, Stephen Curry and company have suffered overtime losses to the Clippers, Raptors, Trail Blazers, Rockets, Timberwolves (twice), Knicks and Spurs. Then, on Thursday night, they fell to the Nuggets.
While the statistic isn’t necessarily relevant — the Warriors went 115-49 the past two seasons and won the Western Conference crown both years — it is interesting, especially considering the team’s dominance.
Wins have certainly been hard to come by this season for Steve Kerr’s team… But, apparently, not as difficult as overtime wins have been over the past two years.