STAPLES CENTER, LOS ANGELES, CA — The Golden State Warriors were in the Southland to face the Los Angeles Clippers. Chris Paul returned from a hamstring injury, while Clippers head coach Doc Rivers told reporters that J.J. Redick would not play due to a strained back.
For the Warriors, Shaun Livingston was ruled out before the game, nursing his own hip injury.
1st Quarter – Early Foul Trouble From Curry, Draymond Doom Warriors
The Clippers got off to a hot start, hitting eight of their first ten shots. Worse, for the Warriors, Stephen Curry committed two bad passes early on and also fouled right after turning the ball over. The second foul occurred with 9:52 remaining, but interim head coach Luke Walton let Curry play until the 7:45 mark. He did have this early splash however:
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Chris Paul was doing major damage from outside, with 14 points on three treys, two jumpers, and a technical foul for defensive three seconds, to boot.
Klay Thompson scored seven straight for the Dubs and drew two straight fouls on his defender, Paul Pierce, but after Walton finally subbed Andre Iguodala for Curry to play point-forward, Draymond Green collected his second foul defending DeAndre Jordan.
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That’s when the wheels fell off for Golden State.
Blake Griffin was often iso’ed after the pick-and-roll against Iguodala, who was guarding Paul. And on a play epitomizing the Warriors’ early plight, Griffin nearly dribbled the shotclock out in the post against Iguodala, only to use his size to bully Iguodala off of him, then fade away for a bankshot jumper.
Walton employed a lineup with Iguodala at the point, Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Marreese Speights and Festus Ezeli.
That made it 28-16 with 4:49 to go in the first frame.
Even after Paul exited with 3:53 to go, Los Angeles kept the heat on. The Clippers flirted with a 20-point lead on more than one occasion. Speights missed three times from point blank range, Griffin grabbed the rebound, led the break, attacked Ezeli down the lane, missed, but Jordan was there to flush home the rebound with two hands.
Ezeli then tried to pass to Thompson when Klay wasn’t ready for it and Austin Rivers easily took it away, Ezeli fouled Rivers, but the referees ruled no clear-path foul. Rivers missed both free throws, however, and the Clippers couldn’t extend their 18-point bulge.
Wesley Johnson finally drilled a three from the left corner to give the Clippers a 39-19 lead with over a minute left.
But Klay kept things from getting out of hand, answering with a jumper, then a catch-and-shoot trey from the left wing with nine seconds remaining, after Griffin got another post-up fade banker.
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Thompson’s triple kept the Clippers’ lead at 16 and the Warriors trailed 41-25 after one quarter.
2nd Quarter – No Momentum
Curry started the second quarter, but Iguodala threw the ball away to Rivers for a runout dunk. Green was back in the game and got a lob to Ezeli for an alley-oop on the attack.
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Steph drained a three-pointer, but Crawford got a cross-over pull up and Josh Smith swatted Curry in the lane. However, the sequence ended with Green getting a banker from the left side…who then gave some words of encouragement to his teammates.
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Still, the Warriors’ deficit continued to hover around 18, 19 points as Curry got jumped on the catch on the deep left wing, left his feet, and threw the ball into the post to Jordan for Steph’s fourth turnover.
Green also picked up his third personal at the 7:44 mark and exited the game with 5:48 to go.
Rivers made Curry pay with a splash from the left wing in transition, pulling up. That gave the Clippers their biggest lead at 55-32 with 7:24 remaining in the half.
Griffin came back in but was not effective, turning the ball over to the backcourt on an errant pass after Curry hounded him like a pesky mosquito in the paint, as Griffin tried to survey angles and position against Jason Thompson, whom Walton opted for over Speights the second go-round.
Los Angeles even got two technicals called, one on Jordan for arguing a foul whistled for chucking Curry as Steph ran down the court on offense. Then Doc got one for debating with an official after Paul on Steph’s fifth turnover and Andrew Bogut hammered Paul to stop the ensuing break and Paul acted like he was shooting the ball from three-quarters-court away from the hoop.
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Curry finally got the Clippers’ lead down to 15 as he managed to sneak past Paul on a broken halfcourt set for a lefty banker high off the board, but the Warriors couldn’t string together points.
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Thompson threw a bad pass to Steph out of a timeout at halfcourt, killing the momentum.
Golden State ended the quarter with Barnes converting an off-balance inside bucket backwards, hoping to draw a foul, then a finger roll fed by Iguodala after Andre cut to receive a pass from Bogut, but Griffin answered going strong down the left side for his own finger roll.
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Curry crossed over Griffin at the other end for a step-back triple. That closed the Warriors’ deficit to 14, 68-54, at the half.
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Steph had a “choppy” 17 points while Thompson led Golden State with 18. Paul amassed 23 points on 8-for-10 floor and Griffin added 18 on 8-for-12 shooting.
Half of Golden State’s ten turnovers were committed by Curry.
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