Posted on May 19, 2016 by Travis Pulver
The Golden State Warriors after a convincing Playoff win.
Game One of the Western Conference Finals served as proof to the fans that even the mighty Golden State Warriors are fallible. That, as talented as they are, sometimes everything will not fall their way. Sometimes, Steph Curry may miss.
However, when it comes to a team as good as Golden State and a player like Steph Curry, fans can count on one thing. When they have a bad game they are going to come back with a vengeance the next time they take the court—and they did Wednesday night in Game Two of the Western Conference Finals.
Unlike in Game One, the Warriors were in control of the game from the start. They got out to a seven-point lead after the first period and held an eight-point lead at the half. Then Steph Curry did what he did best.
He took over the game.
“Steph is going to Steph, alright?” Warriors center Festus Ezeli said after the game. “He’s going to Steph.”
The Warriors outscored the Thunder 31-19 to blow the game open, but the damage was done primarily by Steph Curry during a two-minute stretch where he scored 15-points. Golden State went on to win 118-91.
When asked about his star player after the game, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr had this to say:
“Business as usual. This is what he does.”
Curry gave the fans a bit of a scare in the first period when he chased a ball out of bounds, diving into the second row in the process. It took him a few seconds to get back up. His elbow looked pretty swollen after the game, but Curry said he was fine.
“The elbow’s fine. It looks like it has a tennis ball on top of it. I should be all right.”
While Curry’s exploits have been getting most of the attention, he didn’t do it all alone. Six players scored in double figures led by Klay Thompson (15). Andre Iguodala added 14 off the bench.
It certainly helped that the Thunder’s stars had another off night. Kevin Durant had 29 on the evening and shot 11-18 from the floor, but only had six points in the second half. Russell Westbrook had a double-double with 16 points and 12 assists, but shot a dismal 5-14 from the floor and was 1-5 from behind the arc.
Durant and Westbrook were the only Thunder players to score in double figures.
“We’ve got to deal in the reality and the truth,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. “The reality and the truth is, OK, here are the things that went wrong. Here are the corrections we need to make. Here are the adjustments we need to make. Here’s what we need to do and the series right now is 1-1. That’s the truth right now coming out of it.”
Donovan will have a few days to figure out how to correct their mistakes. He will have to figure out how to get his stars to be more consistent scoring threats. It would help if the Thunder had a third reliable scoring threat on the roster.
Game Three will be Sunday in Oklahoma City.
