Warriors center Andrew Bogut went out of the game with an injury in the final period, and the Golden State ball movement slowed as well, which allowed the Thunder to push the ball and score on the fast break.
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With 7:22 remaining in the third quarter, Andre Roberson of the Thunder made a layup that cut the Warriors’ lead to 64-57. He launched his shot, and turned to walk back down the court without even looking to see if the ball went in the basket. Steven Adams scored just nine points after scoring 16 points in Game 1, while Serge Ibaka connected on just one of six from the field to finish with three points for the game.
For much of the first half, it was a grind it out game, with the Thunder clawing back from a small deficit to take a 47-46 lead.
Just when thousands of OKC fans thought that their team could do the unthinkable in this year’s playoff-to beat the most dominant NBA basketball team today-the Golden State, why not?
And in a blink, the battle became a blowout, as Curry shot and splashed and stared his way to 15 points in 118 seconds, boosting his club to a 20-point lead after three quarters, and, ultimately, a 118-91 win.
Game 3 will be in Oklahoma City on Sunday at 8:00 pm ET on TNT.
The Kiwi headed to the locker room to receive some attention from the medical staff and soon returned to action, but his presence was not enough to restrict the Warriors’ dominance on the boards, earning a 45-36 advantage in the game and pulling down a pivotal 15 offensive rebounds.
That was swiftly followed by two swaggering three-pointers and an outside jumper from Curry and suddenly Warriors was up 79-59.
Ezeli did all of that Wednesday, giving the Warriors the edge against the Thunder’s huge front line, which put together a historic rebounding margin during the regular season. “They have bigs who are relentless on the boards, so I have to come out, be aggressive, box out and hit bodies”.
That caused a large knot to develop, and Curry said the elbow got hit repeatedly later in the game. It trickled down to the rest of the Warriors as the team overall had just 12 turnovers in the game. The Warriors had shot its way out of trouble all season, but in the fourth, the team was 6 for 23, including 1 of 10 from 3-point range.
Westbrook, in particular, looked uncharacteristically disengaged the entire game.
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“Elbow’s fine”, Curry said, according to ESPN’s J.A. Adande.
