OAKLAND, Calif. _ Down by nine and desperate with three minutes left, the Golden State Warriors defense, which wandered in and out of focus much of Wednesday night, finally locked in for a full 24 seconds. They forced a Jae Crowder miss. But they didn't get the rebound.
So the process started over: Scramble everywhere, recover to shooters, drape the Celtics, force a contested Crowder miss. But again, the Warriors couldn't get the rebound. Their spirit was broken. All that was left was the kill shot.
Avery Bradley, a full shot clock later, provided it: a 17-footer to cap a 68-second possession that milked more than a third of the remaining clock, put the Celtics up 11 and provided the punctuation of an ugly 99-86 home loss for the Warriors.
After the Spurs win in San Antonio, Golden State is now only 1.5 games up on the Spurs for the West's top seed. They have two more games in San Antonio, both on the rough side of a back-to-back. With a win in either game, San Antonio would hold the tiebreaker.
So how did the Warriors falter in this one, their only home game in a two-week span? On that killer possession, it was an inability for their small lineup (Draymond Green at center, Kevin Durant inactive in a knee brace) to get a defensive rebound.
But that wasn't the main issue on Wednesday night. The problems begin with their frigid 3-point shooting. After a rough trip out East, where they hovered around 30 percent from 3 during the five games, the California weather didn't warm them up.
Golden State went 6-of-30 from 3 against the Celtics. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, who made fewer than 26 percent of their combined 3s on the road trip, went a combined 4-of-17 against the Celtics (2-of-8 for Curry, 2-of-9 for Thompson). But they were their best long-range performers.
Patrick McCaw stepped into three wide open 3s. He missed them all. Matt Barnes, also wide open, missed both of his. Draymond Green made only one of his six and, because of his struggles, the Celtics tried to bait him into shooting more. He routinely passed them up, one of the many factors that led to one of the Warriors' worst offensive nights of the Steve Kerr era.
But they played enough defense and made enough plays to enter the fourth quarter with a lead. Curry made one of those six 3s right at the third quarter buzzer, putting Golden State up 74-72.
Then the fourth quarter hit, Kerr stayed with some funky lineups _ Curry out for six minutes, Thompson and Green out during some key mid-quarter stretches _ and Golden State's offense hit its sloppiest stretch.
In all, the Warriors were held to 12 points in the final quarter, making only five of their 14 shots and turning it over eight times. The Celtics went on a game-changing 15-0 run, which included back-to-back-to-back open court turnovers when the Warriors couldn't handle Boston's pressure.
After Green made his lone three with a few minutes left, the Warriors had a last gasp effort. They came out of the timeout locked in defensively for one of the first times all night (there were several mid-game defensive breakdowns before).
But the tough-nosed Celtics closed in the grittiest of ways, taking down the shot clock three times, stealing away two offensive rebounds and then icing the game with a contested mid-range jumper, handing the Warriors their third loss in five games.
