This guy.
Oops, I mean this guy:
srsly
Well, that was an eventful game. We don't come to party often, but when we come to the party,
It's a party!
Andre Miller is a stone cold point guard assassin. 37-year old (don't knock it til you try it) just dropped 28 points in 27 minutes, including the game-winner against "defensive stopper" Draymond Green. Not exactly the way I pictured this game going down.
Everyone thought Stephen Curry was going to "break out" in this series, and while that's still quite possible, he was stifled most of the night (or early evening, anyway) by constant pressure and double (or even triple) teams. But he did manage to find his teammates, and he did hit that sweet game-tying shot in the corner. And hey, he still ended up with 19 points (albeit on 20 shots, so not very efficient).
While Curry had a rough offensive effort, Klay Thompson seemingly picked up his slack. At least, for a while. At the end of the night, Klay was a somewhat more efficient 10 of 19 for 22 points. Note that between Steph and Klay, there was exactly one free throw attempt, and that was a technical that Curry took after an illegal defense penalty.
The Warrior who really stepped up tonight was Andrew Bogut, and it's reflected in his +10 differential for the night, highest on the team (Curry was +8, everyone else except for Draymond was negative). Bogut played 31 minutes of staunch defense (except JaVale's thunderous 180 windmill-from-a-standstill-dunk over him), picking up 14 rebounds and 4 blocked shots (Klay had 3 himself, btw). Bogut was the difference maker in this one, keeping the Warriors in the game, when it otherwise might have turned into a blowout.
Some nights the shots just don't fall like you want them to. It happens. David Lee had a worse game than Curry, going 4-14 for only 10 points, and that was before he suffered what looked like a painful injury and had to come out of the game. Let's hope he's ok for the rest of the series. Carl Landry didn't have a stellar game either, going 6 for 14. Both of these guys probably have some trouble scoring over the length of the Denver frontcourt. McGee displayed that to full effect when he pinned an attempted Lee dunk to the backboard on a spectacular blocked shot.
With Faried out, and with Lee's health in question, this game could literally be the one road win that got away. On the other hand, perhaps, Jackson and crew can figure out a way to adjust to Denver's defense on Curry, and help him get off the way we all know he's capable of. To some extent, that's what makes the result of this game frustrating yet at the same time, somewhat encouraging. We barely lost this game, and did it with pretty poor performances from the majority of our offensive threats.
And that's just Game 1 folks. We've waited a long time for this.
And damn if it wasn't worth the wait. This is awesome.
Also, Evan Fournier.