ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — Four nights after advancing to the 2016 Western Conference Finals by eliminating the Portland Trail Blazers in five games, the Golden State Warriors (0-0) welcomed the Oklahoma City Thunder to #Roaracle for Game 1.
The Warriors announced Andrew Bogut (abductor) as “active” and started him.
1st Quarter – Plenty Of Scoring
Both the Warriors and Thunder got off to strong starts. Klay Thompson hit his first jumper:
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Stephen Curry got his hand on a bad pass from Russell Westbrook…
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…and Curry drew a foul on Kevin Durant in transition, the ball going in and out on the layup.
Thompson kept working on offense, and got rewarded with this backdoor reverse layup:
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But Andrew Bogut picked up a Flagrant One after a wild sequence that ended up with Curry missing a left-corner triple:
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Curry missed his first two jumpers, then started to heat up, first from outside. Bogut got a rebound, read Andre Iguodala like a wide receiver running a pattern, and Iguodala dished it over to Steph, who rattled it in, although his foot was on the line:
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Curry then displayed his wizardry at the rim…
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…and in a “chicken BBQ” (per his post-game interview with Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal after Game 5 against the Blazers) isolation with crossovers past the helpless Enes Kanter:
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Westbrook then made an ill-advised save of a ball to Iguodala, who faked a pass and found Barnes open for three:
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Later, Barnes took advantage of the slower Kanter:
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Kanter got the Warriors back, though, with a nice baseline swish, but he missed the next try from the left baseline, and after Dion Waiters missed two free throws, Klay closed out the quarter with a nice slip pass to a rolling Festus Ezeli.
With the last possession, Warriors head coach brought back in Curry, who had subbed out for Shaun Livingston, while OKC head coach Billy Donovan took out Kanter, but the last play went to Thompson, who missed a running jumper.
The Warriors took a 27-21 lead into the second stanza. Curry and Barnes had 8 points apiece, while the Thunder had balanced scoring with seven different players chalking up points on the boxscore.
2nd Quarter – Bench Unit, Lulls, Then Splash
The Warriors bench unit pushed the lead out to 37-24 as they made stops, Livingston got a hesitation dribble that led to a dunk, Iguodala stole the ball from Durant and finished with a two-handed dunk, and Leandro Barbosa made a righty scoop from a drive on the left baseline.
With 9:58 remaining, Donovan took a timeout with the 13-point Golden State lead.
But OKC fought back with a Steven Adams inside bucket out of the timeout, a Curry bad overhead pass that led to a dunk by Durant on the fast break, and a trailing three by Serge Ibaka, prompting Kerr to call timeout as his lead dwindled to just six point, 37-31, with 8:26 to play.
The Warriors stepped up with Steph giving a beautiful bounce pass from beyond midcourt to an awaiting Klay for three on the catch, after an Ibaka miss.
Durant came back with three free throws on a questionable call against Thompson, who ran into Adams on a pick, but later, Draymond Green came back, turning the corner on Durant for a layup, putting the Warriors up, 56-36, with 5:25 to go.
Durant answered again and Adams got an “and-one” down low against Green, but missed the free throw, and the Thunder were back within striking distance, 46-40, after Draymond got fouled and missed both, approaching four minutes left.
That’s when the highlights started to pour in for Golden State.
Klay got an unfair quick-release triple:
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And, although not everything went right for the Warriors, such as this bad screen by Draymond…
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Curry was still on point from distance:
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Thompson played great defense on this deflection of a touchdown pass attempt to Westbrook…
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…and Steph finished the half as only Curry can, with a side-step three:
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With that, the Warriors took a comfortable 60-47 lead over OKC heading into halftime.
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