The injuries keep building up for the Warriors. Players keep going down and almost none of them have returned from their injuries so far. D’Angelo Russell is the latest casualty, having suffered a thumb injury that will keep him out for at least two weeks. The Warriors currently have nine healthy players, several of whom would see very little playing time on most other NBA teams.

Right now, they just don’t seem to have the pieces to keep up, and that showed in Sunday’s 108-100 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. It was clear that the Pelicans had a few players with enough basketball talent to guide their team to a win. Guys like Jrue Holiday, JJ Redick and E’Twaun Moore have the experience and ability to guide a young, depleted squad to wins over bad teams. The Warriors, now 2-12 on the season, do not have those types of players.

The fact that the Warriors lost is not surprising. What is unusual is how they lost. Most recent games have been defined by a Warriors team with a decent offense but no defensive ability. The offense has been able to score enough points to keep the team competitive, but defensive breakdowns ultimately kill the chances to win.

This game largely saw the reverse. The Warriors turned in a solid defensive game. They did a good job contesting inside shots and held the Pelicans to under 42% shooting. The problem was a lack of offense. With Russell out, the offense didn’t have the same kind of flow it does with him on the floor. Open shots were hard to come by and misses were frequent. For long periods of the game, the Warriors struggled to get the lid off the basket. They missed open threes and tough but makeable layups and wound up shooting even worse than the Pelicans with a mark of 40.6% from the field.

The one area of the Warriors defense that struggled was their three-point defense, which was arguably the difference in the game. The Pelicans are second in the league in both three-point makes and attempts, trailing only the Houston Rockets in each category. They are also fifth in the NBA in percentage from beyond the arc. The Warriors knew the Pelicans were going to shoot a lot of threes in the game. They should have focused on guarding the three-point line and forcing the Pelicans to drive and shoot tough, tightly contested two-pointers. And yet somehow, the Pelicans managed to attempt 46 threes, well above their season average of 39, and knocked down 18 of them.

It wasn’t just the fact that they shot them. It was how open they were for many of them. Redick, who is seventh in the NBA in three-pointers made and tied for 13th in percentage, was inexplicably left uncovered from distance time and time again as he sank six of his 11 three-point attempts en route to a team-high 26 points. Moore, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Nicolo Melli found themselves similarly wide open on multiple occasions. Had the Warriors tightly covered these players throughout the game, they would have had a legitimate chance to win. Instead, the Pelicans made 11 more threes than the Warriors did and picked up a 33-point advantage in a game decided by eight.

As with nearly every Warriors loss this season, there were a few positive takeaways. After some early-game struggles with defensive rebounding, the Dubs adjusted nicely and were more competitive on the glass. Two-way player Ky Bowman continues to prove that he belongs on an NBA floor. He scored 19 points, sank three of the Warriors’ seven three-pointers and made a couple of fantastic hustle plays on defense. Glenn Robinson III and Marquese Chriss each scored double digits, with Chriss looking particularly confident at times. And most notably, without Russell as the offensive leader, Eric Paschall stepped up and did his best to fill that role. He scored 30 points on 10-for-17 shooting and helped the Warriors stay in the game with timely buckets when the offense was struggling to score. With Russell out for several games, Paschall may have to do more of the same. In fact, it would be nice to see him be even more aggressive on offense, take over and look for his own shot more frequently. His intermittent passiveness is understandable as a rookie, but the Warriors need someone to take charge offensively. If any healthy Warrior can do it, it’s probably him.

Every time it feels like the Warriors are as beat up as they possibly can be, it seems to get a little bit worse. At this point, all the team can do is fight as hard as possible to stay in games. After five years of mostly good injury luck, the Warriors are learning how to play as a depleted squad. It may result in more tough games down the line, but it will require players to step up, and that’s a good thing.