The Golden State Warriors were at Staples Center tonight to face the Los Angeles Clippers in Golden State’s second-to-last preseason game.
Andrew Bogut was still out with a broken nose, while interim head coach Luke Walton chose to rest Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala. Harrison Barnes returned from a sprained right knee.
Shaun Livingston and Festus Ezeli started in place of Curry and Bogut.
1st Quarter
Ezeli got the first Warriors bucket with a jump hook banker, but then threw the ball away on a cut by Draymond Green, then couldn’t catch a nice drop pass on a drive by Klay Thompson, which led to a Blake Griffin and-one at the other end in transition.
In his first action after missing two games, Barnes had a nice driving layup attempt and was fouled, but the Warriors were down early, 17-9, as J.J. Redick hit a three-pointer Griffin scored 7 points as well.
Thompson looked comfortably smooth handling the ball full court, dribbling up the ball and feeding Marreese Speights for an automatic jumper, then dished to Green for another jumper, then went with a Curry-like behind-the-back pass up to the top.
However, Ian Clark’s turnover woes (he had in the last game against the Los Angeles Lakers) continued, as a bad pass up to Speights too close to him resulted in a steal by Josh Smith and a run-out dunk by Griffin to put the Clippers up, 25-14, with 4:14 to go.
With 2:56 to play, Walton summoned his bench with Clark at the point, Leandro Barbosa at the two, and Brandon Rush, Speights and James McAdoo up front.
Clark notched another turnover, but Barbosa stole it back and Rush fed Clark for an easy layup.
McAdoo had a nice one-on-one defense of Paul Pierce using his patented draw-contact-fade from the high pinch, not drawing a foul, but Griffin was hitting from all over the floor and had 18 of the Clippers’ 31 points.
Los Angeles took a 31-20 lead over Golden State into the second frame.
2nd Quarter
Clark started out the second stanza with a nice floater on the left baseline, but couldn’t get it to drop. Later, he fed Chris Babb for a nice catch-and-shoot three-pointer from the left wing that swished through:
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Babb held his own, although was called for a foul after taking what seemed to be a charge — apparently Babb had his heel inside the circle — on a Smith attack of the rim, then played physical on Jamal Crawford trying to push off on a screen to get open.
But a Babb bad pass gave the Warriors their ninth turnover and soon Golden State found itself in a 41-25 hole with 8:42 to play. The starters came back in with 6:20 to go, down 45-30.
Livingston was the only Warrior hitting any shots, nailing his first 4 shots in 5 tries, including a post fade, to lead the Dubs with 8 points, but it was the kind of night where Thompson shot an early catch-and-shoot three with Griffin closing in on him, missed, and ended up with Griffin in transition and an and-one drawing the foul on Green who was off-balance on his heels.
Aside from Livingston, the Warriors were 9-for-30 from the field.
Golden State’s only other highlight was this pass from Barnes to Ezeli for the two-handed slam:
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But Los Angeles went on a 10-0 run late as Lance Stephenson and Redick made a reverse layups, sandwiched around a Smith three-pointer in which Chris Paul scissored through the Warrior perimeter on both plays, then after Green missed a layup, Paul danced around bringing the ball upcourt, going behind-the-back, giving hesitation dribbles, and retreating to the arc to drill a triple and put the Clips up by 25.
The Clippers took a commanding 67-43 lead into halftime.
Green added 7 points to Livingston’s 8, Thompson had 6, Barbosa 5, and Barnes just 4 points. Griffin led Los Angeles with 23.
Curry still spent some time pleading a case to the ref, even though he was not playing:
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3rd Quarter
Klay started the second half hot, with two jumpers, then eventually tallying 11 points in the first eight minutes of play:
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Things got a little chippy as Warriors-Clippers matchups usually do, with Livingston jawing at Griffin, then Green and Stephenson going at it a little bit after Green got called for a charge into Griffin.
Paul was ejected with 7:32 to play and the Clippers up, 75-55, as he said, “I got two kids of my own; don’t talk to me like I’m a kid,” to one of the referees. However, Klay missed the technical free throw.
Ezeli was off once more, getting a pass inside, finding Barnes on the wing, but letting the pass sail high into the lower bowl section of the arena.
Later, the chippiness continued as Thompson hit a jumper via feed to the free throw line by Barnes, then pointed to the Clippers’ bench. As the ball ended up trickling the rim and in, from the TV broadcast someone could be heard saying, “Short!”
But then Griffin heated up, hitting jumpers from outside, though Warriors backup power forward Jason Thompson showed a couple flashes, hitting a left baseline jumper on a designed play from Klay…
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…then getting an and-one versus Griffin.
The Warriors were still down 79-60 with 5:51 to go in the third, then Jordan got an alley oop smash and Griffin made a step-back, forcing Walton to call timeout with 4:33 remaining and the Dubs down, 85-62.
Smith then picked up a technical, marking the 8th technical called in the game, and interestingly, it seemed Clark beat Rush to the free throw line for the technical foul shot:
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McAdoo had a brief flash with an and-one, but then sloppiness ensued as Austin Rivers hit a three, then McAdoo threw the inbound to Jamal Crawford, who made the layup, and the quarter buzzer soon sounded with the Warriors trailing miserably, 100-76.
4th Quarter
Babb started the final frame along with Livingston, Barbosa, Speights, and McAdoo. Barnes later returned for Speights in a “Stretch Four” role, but did not impact the game much, including an attempted slam dunk that Smith rejected.
Barnes finished with 6 points on just 3 field goal attempts, although he did grab 6 rebounds in 26 minutes of play.
Klay led the team with 21 points, 6-for-12 field, 8-for-10 from the charity stripe, to go along with a 5 assists, which led the Warriors, while Clark added 11 points, but was just 3-for-10 from the floor. Green had 7 boards.
Griffin dominated for the Clippers with 29 points on 11-for-18 field and 7-for-9 from the free throw line.
The Warriors will play the Lakers again on Thursday before heading home prior to the season opener next Tuesday.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @tanisha___s via @talleysmith)
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