Warriors return to action needing to value every second in second half – NBC

Not one game at a time, or even one possession at a time. As the Warriors reach the halfway point of their season Wednesday night, hoping for a resurgence, their goals for the foreseeable future must come one second at a time.

Because every second matters.

From Draymond Green’s volatility to Andrew Wiggins’ diminishing impact, from reckless turnovers to the futile fouls, from vacillating rotations to fluctuating lineups, the first 12 weeks of Golden State’s season spun nothing more than a web of despair.

And the first day of Week 13 brought unspeakable tragedy.

So, as the Warriors begin Week 14 with Game 41, they are trying their darndest to fight through waves of emotional miasma to restart their season with the temporary respite that would come with beating the Atlanta Hawks.

“You don’t need any more reminders of what’s not promised in the future for us to just be able to play a basketball game tomorrow,” Stephen Curry said during his media session Tuesday. “Try to compete, try to win, try to execute the things that we’ve struggled with all year. With our defensive execution. Getting an identity of how we are going to win games.

“We have to remind ourselves of that mission as we go forward with the next stretch of the schedule but, really, it’s just about tomorrow and can we go get a win and enjoy ourselves because then we deserve that.”

After the anguish of the past week, karma would seem to suggest the Warriors “deserve” some form of relief. The sudden death of assistant coach Dejan Milojević, always the brightest light in the room, has rocked them to the core. Everyone feels it. Everyone aches. Everyone is trying to conquer their own misery decisively enough to throw themselves into basketball.

The Warriors are displeased, even exasperated, with their 18-22 record. They’ve earned their 12th-place status in the Western Conference by blowing double-digit leads at an astonishing rate and failing to establish Chase Center as a genuine homecourt advantage.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr, subject to increasing pressure in the final year of his contract, surely realizes Game 41, even though it comes in a time of gloom, is a new start for a team that needs one.

“Are we at a crucial time? Do we have an identity? Where are we on that front?” Kerr said. “The truth is, we’ve been searching all season. That’s why we are where we are, four games under .500.  We have not found the identity, we haven’t found rotations, we haven’t found a starting lineup that we’ve been able to kind of hang our hats on.

“The search continues. You keep working. You keep plugging away, every day, with the expectation, especially with a group of players who have accomplished so much, that you’re going to find it. You’re going to find momentum. You’re going to find whatever it is. Rhythm. So, you keep working and you don’t look back.”

The Warriors were too wounded to play last Wednesday night in Utah, hours…