(Photo: LetsGoWarriors.com Instagram account)
Los Angeles Clippers (20-9) at Golden State Warriors (16-13)
Tipoff: Wednesday, December 25, 2013, 7:30PM PST
Location: Oracle Arena, Oakland, CA
TV: ESPN | Radio: KNBR 680 AM
Livetweet: @LetsGoWarriors (by @samesfandiari)
PREVIOUS GAME
Nuggets: 120-116 win vs Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday, 12/22/2013
Warriors: 89-81 win at Denver Nuggets on Monday, 12/23/2013
Tonight is a special night for the Warriors. Let’s get the strategic stuff out of the way. The Clippers are without J.J. Redick (fractured right hand/torn ligament in right wrist) and have super Sixth Man Jamal Crawford in the starting lineup.
Now, on to more important stuff:
“White-Out” at Oracle:
Special Christmas shoes.
How this is not a rivalry:
And how Stephen Curry may or may not rise up to big spotlight games like this, as Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle writes:
Jerry West was awesome on Christmas. In 1963, he scored 47 points, the fourth-highest Christmas total, at Madison Square Garden, and he averaged 32.2 points in six games on the holiday, which ranks fourth all time.
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But in the 1960s and 1970s, the games were played during the day. Now, Christmas is an all-hours event for the NBA and Curry has to wait until the nightcap to face off against the Clippers’ Chris Paul.
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“You understand the moment and the stage you’re on, but if you don’t approach each game the same way, you tend to psych yourself out and try to do too much,” Stephen Curry said. “It’s a marquee game and you want to send a message, but (you treat it as if) it’s no different than any other game.”
More on the matchup from Carl Steward of the San Jose Mercury News:
While he denied he intentionally raises the level of his play in “spectacle” games, particularly against Paul, Curry understands the stakes.
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“For sure, you know how great of a player CP is and his résumé up to this point,” Curry said. “Every team he’s gone to has been a winning team, so you know if you don’t show up, you’re going to get exposed. You have to make him work on the defensive end and the offensive end, so it should be a tough battle. He can make winning plays any given possession, so you have to be on your game.”
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Curry hasn’t been so bad of late, either. In 12 December games, he’s averaging 26.9 points and 9.8 assists.
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