The series is all tied up.
Stephen Curry took over in the third quarter and the Golden State Warriors pulled away for a 118-91 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals on Wednesday night. The series is now tied, 1-1, after two contests at Oracle Arena.
Curry has largely been held in check during this series, but he went off for 15 points in a two-minute stretch in the second half that turned the game into a rout. The Warriors went up 20 thanks to Curry's outburst and didn't have much trouble closing the game out from there.
One of the keys for OKC in Game 1 was preventing the Warriors, and Curry in particular, from getting hot and racking up points in a hurry. That's precisely what happened in the middle of the third period, and once it was over, the Thunder were in need of a miracle to rally in one of the NBA's toughest arenas.
Curry finished the game with 28 points on 9-of-15 shooting, including 5-of-8 from deep. Golden State also got productive minutes from the bench trio of Andre Iguodala (14 points), Marreese Speights (13 points) and Festus Ezeli (12 points). Iguodala had this amazing layup in the first half:
The Thunder were held to just 19 points in the third quarter as Golden State pulled away. Kevin Durant led the team with 29 points, but had eight turnovers. Russell Westbrook had 16 points and 12 assists, but shot just 5-of-14 from the field. Once the Curry show started up, the Thunder quickly seemed to lose steam and decided to fight another day.
OKC should still be happy with a 1-1 series tie, though, and now the team gets to head home to host the Warriors for Games 3 and 4. This is still very much a series and it'll be interesting to see what adjustments each side makes from here.
Three more things from Game 2:
Steph is unequaled
Part of me almost wanted to make all three of these sections about Curry because he's really what changed the flow of this game. The Warriors and Thunder were countering each other's punches and keeping it relatively close for much of the night, and then in a matter of minutes Curry's individual brilliance turned this into a blowout. You can point to all the little things that helped give Golden State various advantages, but in the end, it was Curry's brief flash of red-hot shooting that put OKC in a huge deficit. That's a tough place to be in, especially at the Oracle, and it's something the Thunder avoided in Game 1 and large chunks of Game 2 by keeping Curry largely in check. But once he finally broke out Wednesday night, that was it. It's a weapon no other team can claim and it's a big reason why the Warriors might go back-to-back.
Golden State takes over the boards
In Game 1, the Warriors got outrebounded, 52-44, and a big part of that was OKC's effort on the offensive boards. That was an area where the Thunder thrived against San Antonio, and grabbing 10 offensive boards helped them win the opener against Golden State. The Warriors made their adjustments in Game 2, however, and had a 45-36 advantage on the boards against OKC. Eight different players on the Warriors grabbed at least one offensive rebound and the team had 15 overall. The Thunder, meanwhile, had just seven. They'll need to turn this trend back around with the series tied after two games.
The need for secondary shooting
While the story tonight was about the game's greatest shooter going off, it's going to be important for both sides to tap into their shooting beyond the top guys to win. For OKC, that means getting buckets from the likes of Dion Waiters, Randy Foye and Andre Roberson on the perimeter. In Game 1, that trio shot 4-of-5 from three and gave an efficient boost. On Wednesday night, they shot 3-of-8 as the team as a whole finished shooting 30 percent from deep. Rebounding and three-point shooting will be key for the Thunder to get more wins in this series and they strayed from their success in both areas in this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment