These Warriors are old, tired and in trouble as Game 7 looms against Rockets

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s not just the stamina becoming compromised. Or the arms getting heavy and the strength waning. Or the legs losing their spring. Fatigue does its greatest damage to the will. It erodes resolve, discombobulates decisions, summons doubt.

Fatigue is the best explanation for what we’ve seen from the Golden State Warriors lately. This unbecoming impotence, this fragility that’s suddenly surfaced, reeks of a team running on fumes. The longer this series has gone — and it’s now going to Game 7 after the Houston Rockets evened the series with a 115-107 win Friday at Chase Center — the less vitality the Warriors have shown. Everyone keeps expecting this trademark Golden State surge, but it has come from Houston while the Warriors sputter.

This is something more than being tired. That’s too physical a connotation. This fatigue is more spiritual, a weariness of the soul, an exhaustion of the mind. The Warriors, as they launched desperation 3-pointers to no avail and devolved into a mess on defense, ran out of fight, as well as answers. They let go of the rope late in Game 6, feebly surrendering the fourth quarter to a Rockets squad teeming with energy, strength and confidence. This was after the Warriors tapped out early in Game 5 to conserve their energy for a close-out game at home.

Now Golden State flies two time zones back to Houston, endeavoring to do what they couldn’t at home: win. Sunday will either be a funeral for their season or a flex of their legendary mettle. But they’ve got to find the antidote, because it won’t be rest.

“It’s always been hard to win,” Warriors star Steph Curry said. “Like, don’t get that twisted … winning is hard. Sustaining it is hard. There are different challenges of figuring out a team that’s trying to take you out of your rhythm or your patterns or whatnot. You’re playing against a really good team. If you want to win at the highest level, you have to embrace the hard. Whether that’s the physical challenges of doing it at this stage of your career, or whether it’s because you’re playing a good team.”

It makes sense for them to be in the throes of fatigue. Curry is 37 years old. Jimmy Butler is a few months from 36. Draymond Green just turned 35. All of them have a track record of battling, years of grinding to — and at — the top, epic moments fueled by legendary resolve.

On top of that, Curry has been dealing with nagging injuries all year, including an injured right thumb, and is facing the kitchen sink from an intentionally physical defense. Butler fell out of the sky onto his tailbone in Game 3, and he’s returned to an assignment of defending 6-foot-11 Rockets center Alperen Şengün in the post and blocking out Steven Adams, another 6-foot-11 center. Ditto for Green, who is the Warriors’ 6-foot-6 center and defensive anchor.

This was always a possible outcome when they acquired Butler at the trade deadline, upgrading from 30-year-old Andrew Wiggins. It worked like a charm, changing the Warriors’ season. Golden State was back. But how long they could hold up was a sensible question, especially in the West. Gary Payton II is 32, but his style of play makes him feel more like the age of the Warriors’ Big Three. One of the few athletes who can match Houston’s explosiveness, Payton joined the starting lineup in Game 6 to deal with Fred VanVleet and take advantage of his rolling. But Payton didn’t have it Friday.

The Warriors have lost all momentum. Their offense is thirsty, their defense disheveled. Their remaining hope is a mythological performance from one of their legendary figures.

Curry, who has averaged 32.6 points in five Game 7s, must pull out another special performance, akin to his 50-point masterpiece in Sacramento in 2023. Or Butler, whose folkloric toughness willed Miami over Boston in 2023 to get to the NBA Finals. Or Green, whose career arc essentially started in a Game 7 against the Clippers in 2014, somehow must summon a generational defensive performance, finding enough fire from somewhere without burning the Warriors in the process.

It could be a surprise performance from someone else. Buddy Hield gets hot. Or Brandin Podziemski. Moses Moody plays the game of his life. Jonathan Kuminga turns his straitjacket into a cape. But that all feels so unlikely. This series seems increasingly overwhelming for the Warriors’ supporting cast, and increasingly heavy for their stars. The pressure of a Game 7 is different, especially on the road. They melted down in Game 6 at home.

Golden State opened the final quarter down two points, having mustered enough resilience to remain within striking distance of a Rockets squad playing like the No. 2 seed. But the Warriors responded by missing 15 of their first 16 shots — including 10 clanks from 3 — with three turnovers. On defense, a blown assignment led to a four-point play by Fred VanVleet, fouled by a scrambling Payton. And unlike the Warriors, who are dying by the 3, the Rockets aren’t missing. Every big shot they needed to make Friday was cash. VanVleet, Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason all demoralized the Warriors with their timely 3s.

Hield, Podziemski, Quinten Post, Green — they’re demoralizing the Warriors with their untimely misses. Golden State was 15 of 49 from 3 for the game, making only three more than Houston despite 19 more attempts.

With Adams and Şengün in the paint, and Amen Thompson always lurking, and the perimeter defense of Houston hounding, the Warriors have been on their back foot. They’re settling for the 3, hoping to make up more ground, instead of working for the gradual, tougher challenge of breaking down the Rockets inside.

It’s a hole in the roster, for sure. The Warriors don’t have enough isolation players who can punish Houston’s aggression. When it got tough in the fourth quarter, they passed the ball on the perimeter, searching for daylight, launching hopes from afar.

Before they could regroup, the Warriors were in a 17-point grave, piles of fresh dirt covering their legs. A time existed where such a deficit, with 4:40 remaining, felt less insurmountable than it did Friday. A quick Warriors run could erase that, rattle the opponent, snatch away the momentum. But irony has seized the pen as the script of this series unfolds.

The Warriors, who built a dynasty on shooting, are being thwarted by a zone defense because they can’t shoot well enough.

The Warriors, who pioneered small ball as a championship formula, are getting overwhelmed by a lineup featuring two plodding centers.

The Warriors, with all their experience and postseason cachet, are being outmaneuvered by a team using pretty much the same eight guys who are playing like they’ve been here before.

The Rockets, who’ve experienced Warriors fatigue more than any other franchise, have produced the Warriors fatigue that could spell the end of the era.

After the game, Golden State grappled with the uncertainty of what to do, workshopping ideas in the locker room. Butler, Green and Curry retreated to a private area, presumably to strategize. Later in the evening, Hield picked Curry’s brain about the pros and cons of leaning into a small lineup or going more traditional, all to counter Adams, the New Zealand mountain in their way.

It’s a simpler answer for the Hustle Award winner. Hustle harder.

“Get loose balls,” Green said. “I think they probably had 20 points off of broken plays and getting loose balls and kicking out for 3s. … In order to beat this team, you’ve got to make second and third efforts. … Last two games, we have not done that.

“… The reality is, the person who wants the ball more will get it. Right now, it seems like they want it more. … It’s all on what we’re not doing, which is fighting to come up with the loose balls when they’re out there.”

But where will they get the juice? The Rockets are quicker, hungrier. It’s been essentially a three-month build-up for the Warriors since trading for Butler and climbing out of Play-In Tournament position. The signs of that grind have shown themselves.

They won Game 1 in a rock fight, survived Game 4 with scrappiness. But Games 5 and 6 have revealed a Warriors team that may not have enough left to win.

We’ll see if they can summon it. From somewhere.

“I won’t say it’s a lack of effort,” Butler said. “It’s just if you want to do it or not. That is the bottom line. If you want to rebound, dive on a loose ball, take a charge. All those little things (are about) if you want to do it. It’s really that simple.”

But when fatigue has the will in its clutches, simple feels so daunting.

(Top photo of Jimmy Butler and Steph Curry during Friday’s Game 6: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)