Warriors Somehow Keep Getting Better Without Stephen Curry
On a night when Damian Lillard shone and the Golden State Warriors' most luminous star, Stephen Curry, sat out, the Dubs made up the difference the only way they could.
Together.
Golden State secured a 2-0 series advantage and, potentially, a more leisurely recovery timeline for Curry with a 110-99 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday, moving one step closer to a second straight berth in the Western Conference Finals.
Portland put the Warriors in a hole early—the kind you'd normally need a hot-shooting MVP to climb out of. Aggressive, confident and enjoying some lackluster Golden State defense, the Blazers built a 17-point advantage in the first half. And Lillard hadn't even heated up yet.
He did that in the third quarter, scoring 17 of his team-high 25 points and holding the Warriors at arm's length despite plenty of surges that narrowed the margin.
Three quarters of frustrating play and rushed shots led Golden State head coach Steve Kerr to react like this, per the Warriors' Julie Phayer:
But then Golden State channeled a terrifying intensity in the fourth quarter.
Klay Thompson heated up, Draymond Green summoned an energy level that was alarmingly combustible (even for him) and Festus Ezeli, inexplicably confined to the bench behind Anderson Varejao in the first half, sprang into the fray and swung the contest, as Kerr told reporters afterward, via the San Francisco Chronicle's Rusty Simmons:
Green finished with 17 points, 14 rebounds, seven assists and four blocks, while Thompson scored a game-high 27. But it was Ezeli's brilliant agility on defense that put a lid on the Lillard eruption. Hedging hard and even switching onto Portland's incendiary point guard when necessary, Golden State's backup center keyed a stifling fourth-quarter effort.
He finished plus-13 in only 13 minutes, chipping in eight points, six rebounds and a block during his limited playing time. According to Warriors PR, the overall results of that pivotal fourth quarter, which Ezeli dramatically influenced, were pretty good:
The Warriors pummeled Portland by a margin of 34-12 in that decisive 12-minute span. If Varejao continues to see minutes ahead of Ezeli, we'll have to commission some sort of investigation. There's no matchup, no situation, no half-reasoned explanation for Ezeli to ever play behind him again.
Big picture, though: This was a game the Warriors were supposed to lose. A bad start, an opposing star turning in a brilliant quarter and no MVP to single-handedly turn the tide.
But it's starting to feel like there's no such thing as a game the Warriors are supposed to lose.
Instead, their recently completed regular season and ongoing playoff romp suggest there are two game-type options: Either the opponent rolls over early and quits, or it fights long enough and hard enough to push the Warriors into some kind of fevered retaliation.
Tuesday offered an example of that second category, as Ron Kroichick of the San Francisco Chronicle suggested:
Golden State's retribution was beautiful or terrible to behold, depending on your rooting interests.
Going forward, the Warriors can do a few things to avoid rough starts, and they seem to have found ways to keep Lillard under control. Shrinking the lineup sooner is a clear cure for whatever ails Golden State. With Green at center, he can switch onto any ball-handler and prevent easy penetration or uncontested threes off the bounce.
Ezeli must now be a more integral part of the rotation. He showed an ability to wrangle Lillard on the perimeter, and if that holds up, it'll allow the Dubs to have it both ways. They can stay big and contain Portland's perimeter threats at the same time.
Oh, and they can get the MVP back!
Curry could return as soon as Saturday's Game 3, though now that Portland has to win four times in its next five tries to survive, the urgency of a speedy comeback is somewhat diminished. Still, if the Dubs had just one more shooter, they could really get their offense rolling.
They've done it on defense so far, as Portland's 12-point fourth quarter showed. But it would be nice if Golden State could count on the easier path of simply outscoring everyone. It's good to have options.
This isn't a "no Curry, no problem" situation.
For the Blazers, it's more like "no Curry, new problem." Without their best player, the Warriors have turned into something else entirely. They've leveraged the talents of a deep roster, pushing role players into larger responsibilities and becoming the un-killable collective we've watched amass a 2-0 series lead.
Together, without Curry, they defend, defy and destroy.
Golden State will gladly take the MVP back whenever he's ready. But he may well return to a roster remade—reforged, really—by the fires of necessity.
It's insane to contemplate, given the 73-win regular season, but the team Curry will eventually return to might actually still be improving.
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