CAN THE WARRIORS HOLD ON WITHOUT DURANT

Steph Curry and Klay Thompson

Last night there were two streaks on the line. The Golden State Warriors had not lost a back-to-back regular season game since April 2015, and the Chicago Bulls had won 17 straight home games while being televised on TNT. This would be the first game for the Warriors without Kevin Durant, who suffered a knee injury Tuesday. He'll be re-evaluated in one month and the Warriors are optimistic he'll be available for the playoffs.

The Warriors would struggle from the field not making their first 3-pointer until almost the end of the first quarter. The shooting slump would continue for splash brothers Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Combined they would shoot 3-of-22 from deep.  Golden State's streak of not losing back-to-backs would end as they lost 94-87 to Chicago. Over the last three games the splash brothers have combined to shoot 11-of-64 from downtown. One thing about these two is that they will keep shooting. That's the only way to get out of this kind of slump.

As of now Golden State are three games ahead of the San Antonio Spurs for first place in the Western Conference. With Durant out it'll be interesting to see if the Warriors can hold on to the top spot. In order to hold on to that top seed I think Curry needs to play at that MVP level from last season. If he can do that I like Golden State's chances of maintaining the number one seed.

Without Durant on the court their offense will have to adapt. The one player who can have the biggest impact is Draymond Green. He does some of everything for this team. He's currently leading the team in assists per game and with Durant out he'll have to take on more of a scoring role. There really isn't anything that Green doesn't do for this team on both ends of the court which is why he's the frontrunner for Defensive Player of the Year at the moment.

The road ahead for the defending Western Conference champions is going to be a rough one without Durant. We will see what this team is made of over the next couple weeks. I don't expect Curry and Thompson to continue struggling from the field as they have over the last three games. With the Warriors eager to prove they can win without Durant combined with the Spurs resting players, I fully expect the Warriors to still be first place in the west by end of the regular season.