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"Without Iguodala and Bogut, the Warriors will have to get points from somewhere." This won't be said by anybody.
— EvanZ (@thecity2) March 19, 2014
If you would have told me the Warriors would get 10 points from Draymond and Harrison and still beat the Magic, I would have believed it.
— EvanZ (@thecity2) March 19, 2014
If you haven't heard yet, there was a huge scientific discovery announced this week that provides the first direct evidence for the theory of cosmic inflation (I happened to start reading this book on the subject a week or so ago). The exciting part about this discovery is that inflation predicts the existence of the "multiverse" (from the NYT article):
Confirming inflation would mean that the universe we see, extending 14 billion light-years in space with its hundreds of billions of galaxies, is only an infinitesimal patch in a larger cosmos whose extent, architecture and fate are unknowable. Moreover, beyond our own universe there might be an endless number of other universes bubbling into frothy eternity, like a pot of pasta water boiling over.
The idea of the multiverse and eternal inflation is so mind-boggling, it got me thinking about the Warriors. Imagine...
- a universe where Draymond Green takes a couple charges, dishes out a few assists, pulls down a bunch of contested rebounds, moves the ball quickly up the court to get the Warriors in early-offense mode and goes 6 for 11. Somewhere in the multiverse that happened tonight.
- Harrison Barnes has an amazing dunk in the first half, and follows it up with several more amazing drive-and-dunk sequences in the second half, in addition to solid all-around defense, rebounding, and passing. Somewhere in the multiverse that happened tonight.
- Mo Speights posts a relatively efficient 13 points and 8 rebounds in 23 minutes and hustles on the defensive end of the floor.
Wait, that actually happened in our universe tonight.
MIND. BLOWN.
Ok, so we probably can't count on Mo Speights giving us that much every night, and it did come at the expense of a very bad Magic team, but without Bogut in the lineup, Speights' performance tonight was definitely welcome (and to be sure, somewhere Feltbot now has fuel for a dozen more Mokur references).
I really don't want to dig too deeply into this game, as other than representing an important win (all wins are obviously important from here on out, as are all losses), this was clearly not playoff competition or anything close to resembling a challenge for more than a few minutes at a time. After an arguably shaky first few minutes where Nikola Vucevic and Kyle O'Quinn caused the hairs on the back of my neck to straighten a little, Curry, Klay, and Lee basically got the offense figured out and from there on it was pretty smooth sailing. The Magic certainly have some talent, but not nearly enough to stop the Warriors when their three best offensive weapons bring their "A" games to the arena.
One thing I'll point out that was nice, if somewhat surprising, to see without Iguodala and Bogut was the high level of perimeter passing and the amount of pick and roll action between Curry and Lee. Perhaps, it was just there for the taking against this Magic squad, but I'd like to think we could see more of that as the team revs up for the playoffs.
Warrior Wonder
Aw hell, why not. It's the multiverse.