So while Oklahoma City returns to the friendly confines of their homewith a 1-1 split, the Warriors team they’ll face in Sunday’s Game 3 won’t be any easier.
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In losses such as Game 1, the Warriors’ shot selection tends to trend toward the latter (bad shots).
With that bucket, Durant had 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting, and Oklahoma City was only down two, but he would add just eight more points as the Thunder got blown out. From the other side of the court, though, the Golden State Warriors are going to need the Splash Brothers Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, as well as Draymond Green to bounce back notch in Game 2 should they really want to stay at least mildly in control of defending their National Basketball Association title. Curry would go on to score a ridiculous 15 points an less than two minutes, to outscore the Thunder by 13 during that span.
“Nothing to really worry about”, Curry said. It was the most he’s scored in a quarter of a postseason game.
The Warriors’ spurt was needed after Durant led the charge to erase what had been deficit of as many as nine points in the second quarter. “He took a picture of I think Draymond (Green) or Andre (Iguodala), who were behind me on the court, so he was taking in the moment”.
What’s remarkable about this, is that Kevin Durant was absolutely on fire in the second quarter, scoring 16 points on an array of driving layups and three-point shots.
That caused a large knot to develop, and Curry said the elbow got hit repeatedly later in the game. He did find time for a game-high 12 assists, giving him his second consecutive double-double.
The Warriors took a 35-26 lead before Durant responded with back-to-back 3-pointers.
Once the cohesiveness of the Warriors’ ball movementreturned, they unlocked some of the finer points of their attack – like creating open looks for Curry. “Maybe I’ve just got to shoot over three people”.
“I thought we were in good shape and then they hit us with that flurry”, Donovan said.
The Golden State Warriors have not lost back-to-back games the entire season.
The Warriors will be feeling confident after squaring up the series but the Thunder achieved their goal by getting the split on the road.
That was swiftly followed by two swaggering three-pointers and an outside jumper from Curry and suddenly Golden State were up 79-59. Due to their completed championship run, they have a higher peak and end Elo than this season’s Warriors.
In the third quarter, Curry got angry at the lack of foul calls and chose to take over the game as if it were a Rubik’s Cube.
Heading into the series, and especially after Game 1, much of the talk centered on the dangerousness of Oklahoma City.
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“They were playing well and they had some momentum; I just know we made some stops and Steph got loose”, Kerr said.
