The Warriors’ home opener turned into a gut punch fast, and the last few minutes left Steve Kerr and Stephen Curry sounding just as frustrated as the scoreboard suggested. Golden State dropped a 111-108 decision to the Memphis Grizzlies after watching a 12-point lead slip away with less than four minutes remaining.
Curry carried the scoring load for Golden State with 24 points, four assists, and two rebounds, but the efficiency wasn’t there. He finished 5-for-15 from the field and 3-for-10 from deep.
Kerr was especially fired up about a late offensive foul call on Draymond Green, and he did not hide where he thought the night tilted.
“It was shocking to see that call,” Kerr said about Green’s late-game offensive foul call. “But again, all the flopping that was going on every time somebody ran into a screen. They just went down, and the refs bought into it.”
With seconds left and Memphis up two, the sequence that followed only added to the sting for Golden State, as Curry hit the shot off that screen that would have put the Warriors in front.
Curry, for his part, said the finish felt like a breakdown in just about every direction after a game in which Golden State had built itself into a winning position.
“We missed a bunch of shots. We had pretty good possession for the most part except those last three minutes,” Stephen Curry said in his reflection on the game. “The ball bounced their way, a couple of tough calls, a couple of tough offensive rebounds… Pretty much everything went wrong.”
“Tough pill to swallow considering how we played solid, especially in that second half to give ourselves a lead and be in control of the game for as long as we did, so it’s tough,” Curry concluded.
The loss leaves the Warriors at 0-2 to start the season, even after they battled back from a 13-point Grizzlies lead in the second quarter and eventually built their own 12-point advantage.
There’s little time to sit with it. Golden State heads to Phoenix to face the Suns tomorrow night in the second half of a back-to-back, and Curry said he’ll probably sit out. If he does, the Warriors will have to lean even more heavily on their depth and cleaner execution to avoid falling to 0-3.
After dropping two games they had chances to win early, Golden State now has to figure out how to steady itself fast. The calendar isn’t giving them much breathing room, and neither is the start they’ve made to the 2026-27 season.
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Grizzlies Showed Real Fight Late But Fans Will Still Debate This Win
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Isaiah Stewarts Grizzlies debut was another notable subplot, even if his impact came more on the defensive end than the scoreboard. Memphis still coughed it up 25 times, but the Grizzlies also forced 19 Golden State turnovers, which helped keep them close long enough to steal the moment late. For a team trying to settle in early, the bigger question now is whether this kind of fight can carry over, especially with the lineup still taking shape after Stewarts delayed debut. [Read more 🡒]