Photo credit: @warriors
By: Ana Kieu
The Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers kicked off their first-round series. Game 1 was at Oracle Arena on Saturday night.
The Warriors’ starters were Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and DeMarcus Cousins.
The Oracle was Roaracle due to the loud cheers and chants from Dub Nation. The game went underway and Cousins scored the first bucket of the NBA playoffs at the 10:45 mark of the first quarter after trailing 3-0 at first. Durant dropped back-to-back dimes with 8:45 left in the first. Cousins continued shooting his shots and then Green contributed his shots. Green was a perfect 5-5 in field goals. The Warriors led 36-27 at the end of the first.
The Warriors turned offense into art in the second quarter. Curry played beautiful basketball. Durant scored a bucket, and with that bucket, Durant (3,665) passed Dirk Nowitzki (3,663) for 15th place on the NBA all-time career playoffs points scored list. Check out the bucket below.
Andre Iguodala threw it down late in the second, and the Warriors took a 69-56 lead to the locker room at halftime.
The Warriors gave a shoutout to Kaiser Permamente for providing Dub Nation with customized Gold and Royal Blue playoff shirts.
The Warriors returned to action in the third quarter. Curry got the crowd pumping with his three-pointers, some of which were long distance threes. Aside from Curry, who passed Ray Allen for most career threes, the Warriors turned defense into offense as Iguodala forced a turnover and threw down a dunk that could’ve broke the rim.
Curry proceeded to shoot threes in the fourth quarter, and the Warriors blew out the Clippers 121-104 for a 1-0 series lead. The Clippers are down 0-1.
Curry led the Warriors with 38 points, 15 rebounds, seven assists and one block. Durant had 23 points, four rebounds, three assists, three blocks and one steal. Draymond Green had 17 points, seven rebounds, seven assists, one block and one steal. Klay Thompson had 12 points, two assists, two blocks, one rebound and one steal. DeMarcus Cousins had nine points, nine rebounds, four assists and one steal. Andre Iguodala had eight points, seven rebounds, six assists, three blocks and two steals. Kevon Looney had six points, five rebounds, two steals, one assist and one block. Andrew Bogut had three points, one rebound, one assist and one block. Alfonzo McKinnie had three points and one block. Quinn Cook had two points, one rebounds and one steal.
The Warriors and Clippers face off in Game 2 on Monday night at 7:30 pm PT. The game will be broadcast on NSBA, TNT and FSPT.
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