On Monday, in a 126-91 drubbing of LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State finally unveiled what the Warriors 2.0 looks like. With the wine and gold winning the first game between the two on Christmas Day, Cleveland is in Golden State to take on the Warriors Monday night. The league admitted to their mistake a day later.
In the two rivals’ second and final regular season game, the Warriors’ 126-91 win was thoroughly dominating in almost every manner. Bay Area fans are incredible, our organization’s awesome, we’ve put together an fantastic team that’s competing for championships every year.
With the Cavaliers losing some games of their own and some Western Conference Finals opponents slipping, the Warriors have a big chance to create distance in the standings.
It is still remarkable to see the equitable sharing of the ball among Durant, Klay Thompson, and Steph Curry. The Warriors would make eight of their last nine shots of the half and out-scored Cleveland 20-5 over the final 4:16 of the first half. Just like the Xmas Day game, the Warriors once again dominated three quarters of the game before slowing down in the fourth quarter. They’d already lost more games than they did all of past year, and there was something absent in their game.
A shocking, unexpected altercation between LeBron James and Draymond Green resulted in a referee-manufactured swing in the pro-Warriors momentum.
Whether James flopped on the play is open to debate and interpretation.
“I thought tonight he just ran around too free”, said Cavs coach Tyronn Lue of Curry, who scored 20 points and dished 11 assists.
The third quarter started off pretty much the way the first two quarters transpired. But Curry has since been involved in more pick-and-roll situations, which has helped him be significantly more aggressive. The lead ballooned all the way to 36 early in the third quarter.
Steph Curry is, without a doubt, one of the best shooters ever to play in the National Basketball Association.
The Warriors led 37-22 after the first quarter. It was more a case of the Warriors guard upping his game from the last time around.
While they won’t explicitly state it, you have to think the NBA is doing this to avoid the creation of super teams like the one in Golden State or the LeBron James-Dwyane Wade-Chris Bosh trio that made four straight NBA Finals appearances. Then he capped off the Cavs’ Christmas Day comeback win with a hard 13-foot turnaround over one of the game’s top perimeter defenders, Klay Thompson, in the final 3.4 seconds.
Golden State (35-6) took control immediately in the latest rematch, getting a layup from Stephen Curry, a 3-pointer from Thompson and a dunk from Kevin Durant in a 7-0, game-opening burst that prompted a Cavaliers timeout just 93 seconds into the game.