The Golden State Warriors (43-10) will head to the Washington D.C. to face the Washington Wizards (33-23) for the first time this season. Heading into tonight’s game the Warriors have won seven of their last nine games, while the Wizards have been slumping losing eight of their last ten games.

Golden State is coming off a 104-98 loss to the Indiana Pacers, partly because All-Star Stephen Curry didn’t play due to a foot injury. He is day-to-day and is expected to play tonight as the two All-Star starters at point guard face off head-to-head, (Stephen Curry, John Wall). Their game in Indiana was the first of a six-game Eastern Conference road trip.

Washington has been a shell of what they were in the first half of the season. Bradley Beal being out with a stress fracture in his right leg has hurt their offense, but overall on both sides of the ball they’ve been less aggressive.

What was known as a defensive first team, they’ve given up over 100 points five times in their last ten games, and in four of their last ten games they haven’t cracked 90 points as an offense. There has been inconsistency on both sides of the ball leading them to the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference, and are only two games in front of the Milwaukee Bucks for sixth spot.

This is what Wizards head coach Randy Wittman had to say about his team’s recent performance, “Right now, we are not playing good. It’s not going to fix itself on its own. We’ve got to be more in tune to problem areas and making it different. We can’t go out and hope things are going to change. We’ve got to go out and change.”

The Wizards defeated the Warriors in their last meeting 88-85 at Golden State on January 28th last season, but on January 5th of last year the Warriors beat the Wizards 112-96 at the Verizon Center.

It will be imperative for Washington to run the “Splash Brothers” off the three-point line in tonight’s game. The Wizards have struggled defending the three point line, and they themselves have struggled making three’s themselves. With Beal out I don’t see the Wizards fortunes turn but they can do a better job defending which could improve their chances of coming away victorious.