Warriors Game Day: Storylines And Themes From Golden State’s Game 2 Blowout Loss vs Los Angeles Clippers (Photo: USA Today/Reuters and Getty Images via SFgate.com)
STAPLES CENTER, LOS ANGELES, CA — Here are the reactions from the local Golden State Warriors beatwriters after the blowout loss to the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 2 of the opening round of the 2014 NBA Western Conference Playoffs.
On how Stephen Curry needs to take over for the Warriors
Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group:
Yes, the Warriors head home with a 1-1 series tie, the goal of any road team. But they also go to Oracle Arena with an important lesson: The “others” are not going to beat the Clippers. In order to upset this No. 3 seed, the sixth-seeded Warriors need Curry to be Curry.
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“I’ve got to make plays. I’ve got to find ways to not let them take me out the game,” Curry said. “Double teams, that’s the point of why they’re trying to do it. I had to get to my spots where I can be efficient even if they’re going to double-team me.”
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Curry the Baby-Faced Assassin is what the Warriors need. Curry the first-team All-NBA candidate. Curry the multifaceted offensive weapon who frustrates defenses with his versatile arsenal.
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They need him to score and pass. They need him to draw double teams and beat them. And by no means is it acceptable for him to be reduced to a floor general.
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Curry the distributor works only if the recipients of his passes make the defense pay for doubling him. As Warriors coach Mark Jackson points out, Curry is all too happy to oblige.
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Monday showed exactly why the Clippers are forcing Curry’s supporting cast to beat them. It’s not good enough to produce regularly.
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In Game 1, the Warriors looked like the Harlem Globetrotters — whipping the ball around the paint, getting dunks and open 3s. In Game 2, they were the Washington Generals, kicking the ball, missing open looks, too discombobulated to get anything going.
Lowell Cohn of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
The real Curry showed up for the second half, shaken but determined. A custodian heard scratching in the broom closet, thought it was a muskrat. Turned out to be Curry. In the second half, Curry scored 20 points, nice but the entire second half was garbage time. As in meaningless.
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What did we learn from Monday night’s endeavor? The Warriors cannot beat the Clippers without Curry. He is the Warriors’ superstar. Their only superstar. The Clips guarded him with three men and dared him to pass to teammates, who looked morally offended by the daring strategy. Not that any Warriors picked up the Curry slack.
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The Clips did more than guard Curry with multiple defenders. They whacked him, hit him hard whenever he came off screens. Especially Matt Barnes who treated Curry like a junior sparring partner. You could hear the deep body shots on Curry at courtside. Maybe Curry should have stayed in the closet.
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Memo to league: Doubling and tripling Curry and beating the life out of him is how you beat the Warriors. No one else can carry their team.
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The Warriors need one more lights-out scorer. It could be Klay Thompson but too often it isn’t Klay Thompson. It sure wasn’t on Monday night — seven points on four shots, the Invisible Man. It was no one. Which means the Clippers executed a clinic on how to beat the Warriors.
On the minor altercation between Jermaine O’Neal and Doc Rivers
Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle:
With 4:48 remaining in the second quarter Monday night, Warriors center Jermaine O’Neal and Clippers head coach Doc Rivers started yapping at each other during a stoppage. When they wouldn’t end the argument after the ball was set to be put back into play, the officials assessed a double technical.
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“Me and Jermaine are close, but not (Monday) – not during a game,” Rivers said in his postgame news conference. “I have an amazing amount of respect for him. He’s a warrior. He’s been in this a long time. You know, when he came over later, we were laughing about it.
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“We were born on the same day. Two Libras. Two stubborn fools. That’s what that was about. I just kept telling him that I love him. I don’t even know what he was saying.”
General recaps
Again, Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle:
“That was a desperate basketball team that we played against, and we didn’t match it,” Warriors head coach Mark Jackson said. “The most disappointing part is that we had an opportunity to take commanding hold of this series. We did not. That doesn’t mean we were going to win this game, but we didn’t lose it in a fashion that’s acceptable to us.”
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The Warriors lost in almost every conceivable fashion. The Clippers – the Western Conference’s No. 3 seed – did not trail, were up by double digits for the final 36 minutes and led by at least 20 points for the closing 28 1/2 minutes.
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Even when Warriors point guard Stephen Curry exploded for a 20-point third quarter, the Clippers managed to extend their lead by six points in the period.
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The 6th-seeded Warriors got destroyed in shooting (56.6-47.4 percent) and assists (29-18). They committed 26 turnovers that were converted into 27 Clippers points and nearly got doubled up in fastbreak points (25-13).
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“We turned the ball over. We didn’t play our brand of defense. We were tentative. They disrupted us with their intensity and aggressiveness,” Jackson said. “Give them credit. There’s no sense in pointing the finger anywhere else. We didn’t get it done. … For 82 games, we earned the sixth seed. We came here and earned home-court advantage, so we will not overreact.”
Monte Poole of CSN Bay Area:
The Warriors committed an astonishing 26 turnovers, off which Los Angeles scored 27 points. The Warriors defense, so crucial to their success, allowed the Clippers to shoot 56.6 percent, including 48 percent from behind the 3-point line.
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Three Warriors scored in double figures, led by Stephen Curry’s 24 points. David Lee, Draymond Green and Jordan Crawford each added 11.
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The Warriors shot 47.4 percent but made only 4 of 19 shots from beyond the arc.
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So bad was the beating that Warriors coach Mark Jackson essentially surrendered the fourth quarter, sitting his entire starting lineup.
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Griffin led all scorers, tossing in 35 points in 30 minutes, making 13-of-17 from the floor. Four other Clippers scored in double figures, including Paul who finished with 12 points and 10 assists.
Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group:
“We lost by 40,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said. “It’s not easy to flush that at all, but we took that home-court advantage, so now we go back to Oracle, and it’s going to get interesting.”
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One of the few displays of fire in the rout came when Curry in the third quarter scored on a layup over Blake Griffin. Frustrated he didn’t get a foul call despite drawing contact, Curry tossed his mouthpiece.
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Foul trouble did the trick in Saturday’s 109-105 win in Game 1, but Griffin came back with a vengeance and scored a playoff career high in points in three quarters while having a fairly easy time getting to the rim. He was 13 for 17 from the field and hit 9 of 10 free throws.
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“He stayed on the attack,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “That’s what we wanted him to do.”
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The Warriors once again got off to a slow start, trailing 15-4 before they were able to settle down in a quarter dominated by Griffin.
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Griffin came out firing with 14 in the first quarter. He skied for a dunk and also made three trips to the free throw line as the Warriors struggled to contain him.
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Meanwhile, Lee twice saw his shot blocked by Jordan and Jermaine O’Neal missed easy shots before both made their way to the bench.
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“It seems like everybody lost their matchup today,” Lee said. “It was a rough game all the way around.”
Sarah Todd of SFBay.ca:
The claws that were expected to come out in Game 1 finally showed themselves in the Game 2 blowout. Midway through the second quarter, Clippers coach Doc Rivers and Golden State big man Jermaine O’Neal exchanged words that landed both of them technical fouls.
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Usually Curry is calm and collected on the court. But after two consecutive scoring drives on Griffin with no foul called on the Lob City star, Curry threw his mouth guard toward the Clippers bench and was handed a technical.
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Curry said the frustrations of the game just came to a head, the score having a lot to do with it, and he reacted:
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”The playoff atmosphere is energetic and when things aren’t going your way you’ve got to find a little way to get yourself going and get your teammates going. Just showing some fire, hopefully I can save some money next time.”
Steve Berman of Bay Area Sports Guy:
What’s there to say about this game? Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan were ferocious from the start, which was the fear all along going into this series. Griffin led the way offensively, with 35 points on 13-of-17 shooting. He was a beast in transition, he was unstoppable around the rim, and his jumper was on point. Jordan blocked five shots, and it seemed like he blocked 12. It almost appeared as if he swallowed David Lee whole at one point, when Lee mistakenly thought he could dunk over the man who finished third in the Defensive Player of the Year voting.
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“I think he was trying to get a revote from you guys tonight,” said Doc Rivers. “I thought he was awesome. He blocked a couple shots where the guy in front of him was trying to block the shot, he jumped over his own guy to block the shot. He’s been just dominant for us.”
Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group:
Now the Warriors have to get it back, starting with Game 3 on Thursday at Oracle Arena, or else this series could get real ugly, real fast.
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That is, if the Clippers let them get any of it back.
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Point made: The Clippers, at their best, are much better than the Warriors, who are without starting center Andrew Bogut.
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