It's no secret that the Golden State Warriors have been dealing with injuries recently. Headlined by Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler — the two stars that were meant to lead the team to glory — the Warriors have had a plethora of names populate their injury reports ahead of many of their recent games.

In the past few games, some of these injuries have been emerging mid-game, throwing an even bigger wrench into the Warriors' problems. It throws off their pregame gameplan and forces other players into positions and minutes they may not have been expecting to play otherwise.

In the Warriors' back-to-back losses to the Detroit Pistons and the Atlanta Hawks on Friday and Saturday, this notion was most apparent.

In the former, Kristaps Porzingis left the game early after just 11 minutes due to back tightness, and in the latter, Quinten Post was forced to sit out after just 14 minutes because of a foot injury.

After the loss to the Hawks, Steve Kerr discussed why these two midgame absences were so impactful.

"Second game in a row, we've lost our space five with Kristaps last night, QP tonight. I'm not saying that's why we lost both games, but I'm well aware of the importance of having a guy who can stretch the floor at the five spot, especially when you're facing great defensive teams. Atlanta and Detroit are two of the very best in the league at ball-hawking, getting deflections, and steals. If you don't have that space five, it makes life really, really difficult."

Kerr went on to explain how the loss of the spacing big man directly affects their guard play, too.

"Now all of a sudden, for De'Anthony Melton and Brandin Podziemski, it's harder for them to penetrate. As I said, both games, we're going against amazing defenders. If you don't have the five who can space the floor, it makes offense really tricky. When you're missing Steph and Jimmy and Moses, life gets really difficult."

Both losses in the back-to-back were characterized by poor second and/or third quarters, exactly like Kerr was referring to.

In both those games, Porzingis and Post left in the second quarter. In Porzingis' case, that led to the Pistons opening up a huge 36-24 advantage in the second quarter and building off of it with a 30-23 third quarter.

On Saturday against the Hawks, the Warriors managed to stay in it in the second quarter, only losing 28-25, but everything fell apart coming out of the locker room as the Hawks thrashed them, 39-20.

Without two key parts of the offense, and defense for that matter, it was difficult for the Warriors to get much going. Particularly, the two of them being the lone healthy centers meant Draymond Green and two-way players Malevy Leons and Omer Yurtseven were forced to slide into those center positions.

Health is going to be everything down the stretch for the Warriors, and they need it as soon as possible.