Golden State Warriors win and Stephen Curry impresses in playoff debut

The Golden State Warriors defeat the New Orleans Pelicans by a score of 121-116, led epic by the return of Stephen Curry.

The Golden State Warriors‘ star point guard, Stephen Curry finally made his playoff debut last night, and it was in epic fashion. After missing a little over a month with a knee injury, the two-time MVP returned to the court during the Warriors 121-116 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans in game two of the second round of the playoffs.

If there was ever any question of whether or not Curry would be 100% healthy in this round, he answered that with an emphatic yes last night. In 27 minutes of play, Curry scored an impressive 28 points on 53% shooting from the field.

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This level of production began in the very beginning of the game for Curry. In the first quarter, in which he only played four minutes, Curry registered eight points while making 3 out of his four shots.

It was clear from the minute he checked into the game that Curry was picking up right where he left off. This is no surprise as reports came out towards the end of the series against the San Antonio Spurs that Curry felt he was ready to return to the court, but the team elected to make him wait a few more games.

This extra rest may have been just enough to allow Curry to return to his peak form.

As for the rest of the team’s performances, there was mixed results. Last night proved to be a rare off game for Klay Thompson. Up until last night, Klay was on fire during the playoffs, averaging 23 points a night. Last night he went cold, scoring only ten points while making only four of his 20 shots.

This rare off night for Thompson is not something we should expect to happen very often going forward.

Draymond Green had a night completely opposite to Thompson. Green was one rebound shy of a triple-double, bringing in 20 points, nine rebounds and 12 assists.

Green found himself in an intense duel with Pelicans’ big man, Anthony Davis, all night. Both players were making incredible plays on both the offensive and defensive ends all night. Things got particularly intense in the third quarter when both players fell on top of each other, leading to an awkward skirmish that resulted in a double foul called.

The intensity continued when the third quarter came to an end and Green found himself in a verbal altercation with Pelicans’ point guard, Rajon Rondo.

Perhaps the strangest performance on the team came from Kevin Durant. If one was to watch the game without checking the box score, they’d think Durant was having a poor game. That’s because he was, to his standards.

For the first three quarters Durant found himself missing shots he would almost always make. He was being guarded by Jrue Holiday all night, who is in case you didn’t know, only 6’4″. With this mismatch you would expect Durant to dominate all night. But alas, he did not.

It was a very lackluster performance by Durant for much of the game. This changed in the fourth quarter though. In the final period Durant finally began to heat up, bringing his scoring total for the night to 29. Only Kevin Durant can manage to have an off night for his standards and still score 29 points. It is truly bewildering.

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This was a very close game for most of the night. That is until the Warriors went on the type of fourth quarter run we have grown accustomed to them going on, extending their lead to double digits in the blink of an eye.

Even when two of the team’s stars are not playing their best games, the team still managed to walk away with a win. This game has made it clear that this series will almost surely end in a sweep.

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