Monday's Essentials
Tony Mejia
Game of the Night - Golden State at L.A. Clippers (-8, 204.5), NBATV, 10:35 ET
The Warriors open their busiest week of the season, playing five games between now and Sunday night. Stephen Curry, nursing an adductor strain, won’t play until Thursday’s game in Houston at the earliest and may miss the week entirely. Golden State will remain in Texas for a Saturday-Sunday back-to-back in Dallas and San Antonio, giving Curry an opportunity to return in one of those if he’s ready.
If you were to take a poll of the Brooklyn Nets, they would likely tell you he can afford to take the whole week off.
Cook burned them for 27 points on 11-for-16 shooting in Saturday’s 116-100 Warriors’ win that Curry watched from the bench. Draymond Green was sidelined too, dealing with a toe sprain that he can afford to take his time with. Jonas Jerebko replaced him in the starting lineup Saturday night, but head coach Steve Kerr also has Jordan Bell and Kevon Looney available in that spot.
Most important, he’s got Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson raising their level because they’re getting the looks that they typically have to share with their All-Star teammates, so expect them to be highly engaged in the short term. It’s one thing to have to be the lynchpin over the course of 82 games, but for a four-to-five game stretch, being able to find a more sustained in-game rhythm offers a great change of pace for Durant and Thompson. The duo combined to shoot 20-for-35 against Brooklyn, which had come into Oakland on a three-game winning streak and looks much improved. They hit exactly half of their six 3-pointers and sat out most of the fourth since Cook bested them both in filling Curry’s role, finishing 11-for-16 and hitting 3-for-5 from 3-point range in scoring a season-high 27 points despite not being utilized much this season.
Count on him being a big part of the Warriors’ week, which begins against the team currently running second in the Pacific, the L.A. Clippers. Doc Rivers has done a nice job with his new-look group in the early going, working in center Boban Marjanovic and impressive rookie Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Forward Tobias Harris and wing Danilo Gallinari have been consistent go-to scorers, but L.A. relies heavily on its depth to wear teams down due to the presence of reigning top Sixth Man Lou Williams and physical power forward Montrezl Harrell on the second unit.
Those two made the difference in the Clippers’ most impressive win of the season, a 128-126 OT upset of a Bucks team that crushed Golden State 134-111 on Thursday night in the game where Curry suffered his groin injury. Milwaukee rebounded from the loss at Staples by taking down the team that currently has the third-best record in the West, the Nuggets, defeating them in Denver on Sunday night.
Harrell led the way with 26 points and nine boards, dominating with his tenacity. Williams, who said afterward that he played terribly, won it with an impossible-looking floater just before the final buzzer to end up with 12 points and 10 assists. The Clippers may not be among the teams you think of when listing off Golden State’s biggest challengers out West – they’re second in their own city – but this group they’ve assembled doesn’t back down easily. This contest should be just as difficult as their endeavor into the NBA’s “Texas Triangle,” which has presented a major obstacle for decades given the sustained strength of the Spurs, Mavericks and Rockets all these years.
The Warriors-Clippers rivalry no longer has the same feel with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin now elsewhere, so we’ll see what effect that has on their first meeting of the 2018-19 season. This used to be a game Golden State had circled on its schedule, which is why it has won 13 of 14 in the series since the start of 2015. Without Curry and potentially Green in the mix, the Dubs should still be favored, but the number shouldn’t be more than a couple of points. The ‘under’ has prevailed in three the last four games for both teams.
