After two consecutive losses, the Golden State Warriors were quite pleased to go back to their winning was, which included not turning the ball as much as before, beating the Brooklyn Nets 107-99 in a game that wasn’t as close as the scoreline suggests.

The Warriors turned the ball over 45 times in their two losses. Turnovers have been an issue during the Mark Jackson era as well. While the Warriors love playing wild, fast and high scoring basketball, it has often come at a price of not holding on to the ball. One of the things Steve Kerr is trying to do is changing that weakness without taking away too much of the team’s “wild” factor. In short – simply keep them playing smarter.

We’re still sort of adjusting and trying to find our identity. I want them to be explosive, but a little less wild. It can be done, but it’s tricky. It’s like you don’t want to take away their spirit, but you want to be smart, too. It makes things so much easier when we take care of the ball. Turnovers killed us the last couple of games, but I’m happy we avoided them today.

The Warriors didn’t shoot exceptionally well in the win over the Nets – 45.6% from the field, 32.4% from beyond the arc. Andre Iguodala and Leandro Barbosa hurt their overall numbers by going 0-for-7 from beyond the arc. But without turnovers hampering their attempt to get back on the winning horse, the Nets simply don’t have enough talent and especially offensive firepower to compete with Golden State who weren’t even on a very good day.

Klay Thompson, the team’s MVP this season so far, scored 25 points to lead the way. It was only 8-of-22, but he did hit 3-pointers which fix the situation in terms of effective field goal percentage. Stephen Curry was a bit more accurate on 6-of-12 from the field with 5 assists and 17 points. Draymond Green scored 17 points with 8 rebounds and 7 assists in a surprising all-around effort from him, while Harrison Barnes helped out with 12 points.

One big difference between the two teams was the rebounding, as the Warriors grabbed 14 off the offensive glass, not having too much trouble over Kevin Garnett and Brook Lopez. Andrew Bogut grabbed 14 rebounds himself to finish with a double double. His defense (and not his alone) helped out keep the Nets on just 3-of-16 from beyond the arc. All those facotrs combined, and it’s actually surprising to see the game ended with only eight points separating the two teams.

The talk of being the best in the West is over, for now. Until the opportunity comes up again, it’ll mostly be about fixing the few things that do need to change in order for the Warriors to no longer be a team fighting to make the playoffs, and moving on to become one of those competing for one of the top spots in the conference.

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