Coming off a wire-to-wire blowout loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night, most people didn't expect too much out of the Golden State Warriors just 24 hours later. Facing off against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are a top-four team in the Eastern Conference, poised to make a potentially deep playoff run, it would take a big leap for the Warriors to pull off an upset.

However, with the injury report looking a bit better for this game — Kristaps Porzingis, Gui Santos, and De'Anthony Melton were all available this time around — the Warriors gave it a fair run. Despite trailing by double digits through a good portion of the second and third quarters, the Warriors clawed back to take the lead midway through the fourth quarter and were in position for an upset win all the way to the final buzzer.

Alas, they just didn't have enough offensive and defensive juice to outpace the Cavaliers, and ultimately lost, 118-111. This is their 41st loss of the season, meaning they officially cannot finish above .500 for the season for the first time since 2020.

In the final minutes of the game, Max Strus sank the Warriors with two wide-open threes created by the Dubs doubling James Harden on pick-and-rolls.

After the game, Steve Kerr broke down what went wrong on those defensive possessions.

"First one, it looked like we over-rotated to start the play and they got the ball behind us and then we were scrambling. The second one, BP came over to double Harden and he just came over a half-second too soon, and that left one second on the clock. Cleveland did a great job of spreading the floor. Obviously, Harden puts so much stress on your defense and his ability to score, get downhill, get to the rim — you have to react, you have to help, and they've got shooting to support him."

Though Harden only ended up with 19 points and 5 assists, his impact was extremely clear, especially down the stretch.

It only takes one look at the box score to see where exactly the Warriors fell short.

The Dubs shot just 27.3% from three-point territory, making just 12 of their 44 attempts. That included some ugly performances such as Draymond Green's 2-8, Porzingis' 0-5, or Melton's 1-5 shooting.

On the contrary, the Cavs shot 44.4%, knocking down 16 of their 36 shots from beyond the arc. They were led by Strus, who shot a blistering 6-10 from deep en route to 24 points, and Donovan Mitchell, who also shot well at 4-7 from three to tie the game-high with 25 points.

The two Warriors matching with Mitchell with 25 points were Brandin Podziemski and Gui Santos. This is now Podziemski's fifth game in the last six contests that he has scored 20 or more points, and considering he scored 12 points in 7 minutes the first quarter against the Spurs, then played just 10 more minutes the rest of the game, he likely could have reached that 20-point mark in that game, too.

For Santos, 10 of his 25 points came in the fourth quarter, marking the third of his last four games played where he's scored at least 25 points as he continues to excel in his larger role.