One of the first things you notice when the Golden State Warriors come to town is that their fans travel well. There were as many blue and gold jerseys as Blazer black and red outside the Moda Center before Friday night’s game, and the majority of them had the familiar number 30 for Stephen Curry, who had sprained his ankle again the night before and didn’t make the trip. A sign in the crowd accused the California invaders of being Laker fans in camouflage, perhaps recalling the days when the Showtime and Kobe Lakers regularly brought their posses with them on the road. In any case, it was one more sign of the Warriors’ current supremacy as the glamour team from the Golden State, with their purple and gold rivals down south faded into eclipse.
The Warrior posse was in force on the visitors’ end of the floor during warm-ups, a much larger crowd than any I had seen for a visiting team before a game except when LeBron James came to Sacramento last December. Unlike James, who stiffed his fans when he came to Sacramento last December, the Warriors rewarded their followers by showing up for some early practice shots. Even more fortunate were those fans who secured spots by the tunnel and got autographs from Kevin Durant, who lingered and chatted for a couple of minutes before returning to the visitors’ locker room. They may have been without Curry, but the Warriors were still the big boys in the room, and the pre-game excitement was more intense than usual.
None of this mattered to the Portland Trail Blazers, however, who came out and handed the Warriors their second loss in a row at the Moda Center, 125-108. The game was closer for much of the night, and the Warriors even managed to take a brief lead during one of their trademark dominant third quarters, but the Blazers quickly reasserted control and cruised to the finish as the Warriors faded, possibly tired from their second game in as many nights. Durant, with 40 points, had another monster game, but the rest of the team didn’t help him enough, and it is also brutally clear that the Warriors are unable to handle Portland’s guards Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, who combined for 58 points and nine three-pointers on the night. It was hard to believe from the box score that they were only 50 percent from behind the arc–during the game, they seemed to hit them at will.
With a rare loss by the Houston Rockets that same evening, the Warriors stayed only a half-game behind the Rockets for the top seeding in the NBA’s Western Conference, but they are in
something of a crisis. Curry’s recent ankle problems bear a disturbing resemblance to the repeated injuries he suffered in his first two years in the league, when it seemed unlikely that he would ever stay consistently on the court, let alone become the otherworldly star that we’ve known over the last half decade. This puts not only the Warriors’ current season in doubt but possibly their future as top contenders. Even with Durant, they’re not the same dominant team without Curry bringing the ball up the court and bringing the house down with transition threes. It will be interesting to see in the next month how the Warriors play Curry. They may be well advised to rest him as much as possible even if it means conceding the top seeding to the Rockets. A healthy Curry is worth far more than one extra home game in a playoff series, and the Warriors would do well to remember that.
As for the Blazers, their recent win streak has put them, shockingly, in the number three position in the Western Conference, on top of a pack of eight teams separated in the standings by only four games. An even better indicator of their success is their recent nine-game winning streak, with two of those victories over the Warriors. The Blazers are healthy, playing good defense with Jusuf Nurkic guarding the rim, and ready to make an extended run in the playoffs. As Lillard said after the game, the Blazers believe that they are for real, and they probably would like nothing better than another playoff series with the Warriors, which would likely be in the conference semi-finals given their current standings. After their two recent victories, the Blazers may feel like they have the Warrior blue and gold right where they want them.
