Missing Steph Curry, Warriors go cold in crunch time and lose to Thunder

SAN FRANCISCO — Backup forward Kyle Anderson drilled an and-1 layup with 5:45 left Wednesday night to give the Warriors a 96-93 lead on the Thunder. It forced an Oklahoma City timeout, the brief highlight of a game Golden State trailed almost the entire way.

But the momentum quickly faded. Anderson missed the free throw after the timeout, and after that the Warriors failed to score on nine consecutive possessions. They went from the 5:45 mark to the 19-second mark stuck at 96 points, an extended drought that gave them a third straight loss and dropped them to 12-6 this season.

“It’s kind of pick-and-roll time late in the game (in the NBA),” Steve Kerr said. “With Steph (Curry) out, it makes it a little more difficult on our team.”

Despite an average of only 29.7 minutes per game, Curry is “broken up” early this season, Kerr said. He has appeared on the injury report a couple of times recently with bursitis in his left knee. There was some internal chatter about him missing the second night of a road back-to-back in San Antonio on Saturday.

But Curry instead played against the Spurs and then played again two nights later, playing 94 minutes over four days. Curry’s knee tendinitis causes pain in both knees. He had an MRI scan that came back clean on Tuesday. But lead medical decision maker Rick Celebrini suggested he miss Wednesday’s game against the Thunder, giving him a few extra days of rest before Saturday’s game in Phoenix.

That left the Warriors without Curry in crunch time against the Thunder’s ferocious defense, currently ranked first in the NBA. In contrast, with the game on the line, Golden State had a sequence of uneven possessions that ended with contested Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga fadeaways, turnovers or rushed jumpers late in the clock.

“I thought we were a little spread out, and that’s on me,” Draymond Green said. “The game gets to the point where somebody has to slow the game down and get us into a set. I’m the veteran out there. I’m the one with the most experience out there. So I’m going to have to get my head out of my a– and take the ball and get us into a set. Something that would be beneficial to all of us.”

Without Curry, Kerr decided to go small with his starters for the first time this season. Brandin Podziemski started in Curry’s place, and Kuminga replaced Trayce Jackson-Davis, bumping Green to the center spot.

Podziemski and Kuminga — expected to get a bump in scoring responsibilities — got off to an extremely slow start, and the Warriors dug an immediate double-digit hole. But both brought more juice in the second quarter and were a big part of the surge in the third quarter after Thunder wing Jalen Williams left the game and injured his eye while contesting a Kuminga poster dunk.

Podziemski had 12 points and five assists. It was a small step forward as he tried to climb out of his offensive slump. Pat Spencer, the two-way guard who stepped into backup duties, turned the game around with his energy in the second quarter. Kuminga scored a team-high 19 points on 8-of-21 shooting.

“JK came in and did a great job after the first (effort) when he was rusty,” Kerr said. “We’ll definitely play the smaller lineup with JK at the four and Draymond at the five plenty coming. But my gut would be to keep starting like we started with Trayce and Draymond.”

Kerr said ahead of the game that he knows Kuminga would “prefer to start” but he likes him as the team’s scorer off the bench