Golden State Warriors: 3 takeaways from Game 2 vs. Clippers

1. Curry and the Warriors are fine

The story for Game 2 was pretty similar to the plot of Game 1: The Warriors went up early, the reserves started to trickle in, the Clippers stayed within striking range … and then Stephen Curry checked back in and destroyed worlds in the second quarter. The only difference was the level of complacency that took hold in the third and fourth quarters, which completely flipped the script.

The Clippers proved the same resilience they’ve put on display all season. People counted them out before the season began, and then again after they traded away Tobias Harris and it seemed like the focus was retaining their lottery-protected first round draft pick. The Warriors made the same mistake Monday night, and it cost them their chance at a sweep.

It’s only natural to be alarmed after such an inexplicable turnaround.

The good news is, as cringeworthy as the “3-1 lead” jokes are going to be for the next week for Dubs fans, their team is still probably going to advance quickly. This is a series again thanks to the Game 2 meltdown, but it’s still a heavily lopsided one because of the fact that Los Angeles simply has no answer for one of the league’s most unguardable players.

When Curry re-entered the game at the 6:19 mark of the second quarter, the Dubs were up 50-39. They closed the half on a 23-11 run to go up 23 at the break, with the two-time MVP accounting for 11 of their last 15 points over an incendiary 2:43 stretch.

https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/1118000495698669569

In Game 1, he finished with 38 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists on 11-of-16 shooting from the field and 8-of-12 shooting from deep. In Game 2, he had 22 points on just nine shots in 18 minutes in the first half. He went cold from there, finishing with just seven second half points on 2-of-9 shooting, and that’s when the Clippers struck.

But it wasn’t really anything specific they did to shut him down; Curry just missed a lot of shots he normally makes. L.A. still doesn’t really have an answer for him.

While the same could be said about Lou Williams (30.5 points and 10.0 assists per game on 55.8 percent shooting through two games), the Warriors haven’t even played their best hand yet.

Kevin Durant got ejected in Game 1 and had more turnovers (nine) than shots (eight) in Game 2. Klay Thompson hasn’t hit 20 points in a game yet. DeMarcus Cousins went down four minutes into Monday’s contest. And yet, despite all that, the Warriors were well within reach of a commanding 2-0 lead before s**t completely hit the fan, which is unlikely to happen again.

In Game 1, the Clippers were basically Patrick Beverley and the Warriors were Kevin Durant — both were ejected, but one was a nagging pest of an underdog who couldn’t be taken seriously given how dominant the heavyweight favorite was. In Game 2, Golden State discovered the bite that went with all that bark.

It’s tempting to wonder what’s wrong the Dubs for the hundredth time, or project their future failures based on this one historic comeback, but it’d probably be a more useful exercise to wonder how the Clippers are going to take the Warriors’ best punch in Game 3.