Warriors vs. Clippers: Score and Twitter Reaction from Christmas Day 2014
The Los Angeles Clippers survived an ice-cold start to upend the Golden State Warriors at the Staples Center on Christmas night. Down the stretch, Clippers sixth man extraordinaire Jamal Crawford, Chris Paul and the team's defense took over the game.
The result was a season-series-evening 100-86 victory.
As Diamond Leung of the San Jose Mercury News points out, the loss was the Warriors' biggest of the season in terms of final deficit:
Crawford led all scorers with 24 points. He had 12 of those in the fourth quarter when the Clippers outscored the Warriors 27-16. After trailing 42-41 at the half, Los Angeles held a 59-44 advantage in the second half to pull away.
Paul was a maestro with the ball and played an excellent all-around game. He finished with 22 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
Blake Griffin (18 points and 15 rebounds) and DeAndre Jordan (14 points and 12 rebounds) were strong as well with double-double performances.
Dan Woike of The Orange County Register highlighted the strong defensive performance on the Warriors' top weapons:
The Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry (23.4) and Klay Thompson (21.6), were both held well beneath their scoring averages. Curry finished with 14 on 5-of-12 shooting and Thompson had 15. The latter made just six of his 18 shots from the field and was 2-of-10 from three-point range.
The free-throw line was also a big problem for Golden State. As a team, the Warriors made only 12 of 22 attempts (54.5 percent). Even Curry, one of the game's best free-throw shooters, missed once from the line. The poor shooting was especially out of character for Golden State.
Coming into the game the Warriors were making 79 percent of their free-throw attempts as a team. The missed opportunities provided the Clippers the rope they needed to climb out of an early hole.
After starting the game making just four of 24 shots from the field in the first quarter, the Clippers clamped down on defense and ultimately found their shooting touch.
How bad was the Clippers' shooting early on? Take at look at this graphic from ESPN Stats and Info:
Usually, Clippers-Warriors games feature some chippiness. That element was absent Thursday—maybe it was due to the holiday. Still, Golden State's Draymond Green felt the void, per ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne:
Whether emotion or physicality was missing, the Warriors still came up short.
They dropped to 23-5 on the season, which is still the best mark in the NBA, and 13-4 on the road. Golden State has now lost two in a row for the second time this season. It also had a two-game slide from Nov. 9-11. The Warriors ran off 16 straight wins after that skid.
They will get back to work on Saturday at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Things could get even easier in the next game as they host the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday. The way is paved for the Warriors to quickly recover.
The Clippers ended their own two-game losing streak with the win, and improved to 20-10 on the season and 12-3 at home.
These two teams play an exciting brand of basketball against each other. It's a matchup most would love to see in the postseason. If both teams can continue their winning ways, that's something that just might come to pass.
As of now, the Warriors have the best record in the Western Conference and the Clippers are fifth. That aligns properly for a potential second-round meeting.
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