This Can’t Be Real Life!

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Seriously, just take that title in for a second and let it wash over your Warriors fandom. This honestly can’t be real life right now as a Warriors fan with the Warriors going out and putting a drubbing on the Los Angeles Clippers. Sure the Clippers were on the back end of a back to back and had just had their 17 game winning streak snapped in Denver but the beat down the Warriors put on the Clippers was more statement than happenstance.

First let me get this out of the way real quick before I dive into some game analysis. It weirds me out that I am writing about a winning team, my winning team the Golden State Warriors. All I’ve done over the last 3 years covering this team and last 20 years rooting for this team is harp on why they’re aren’t good. Almost like some masochistic ritual that was stuck on an infinite loop, I would get my hopes up for the team in the pre-season and then quickly dismiss them because at some point the Warriors weren’t going to meet my expectations and in fact slip well below them. Why did I need to be optimistic when I knew that failure was always lurking around the corner ready to beat the last shred of “Fan” out of me? These emotions and feelings are what forge the heart against constant sports abuse from the team you grew up watching and loving but that has never really been that good. In time, I’m hoping that I will get used to the feeling of “Expecting” the Warriors to win as opposed to the good old comforting feeling of knowing that at some point “Bad” will happen and like a student in Hostel, I will get dragged to a room and tortured because that is just what happens when you are a Warriors fan. (Steps off Soap Box)

(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

In a night where I though the Warriors would struggle against a weary Clippers team, they came out and put hands on Lob City. The player doing most of the grunt work for the Warriors was Stephen Curry who lit up the Clippers for 25 points in the first half on 9-10 shooting and ended the night with a line of 11-16 for 31 pts, 6-8 on 3pt-attempts, 6 REB, 8 AST. 2 STL, and a +/- of +27. Sure Curry turned the ball over a couple of times, especially when the Clippers would trap hard and Chris Paul would try and wrestle the ball away like DB coming in late for a strip but Curry did a solid job of keeping his dribble alive and passing out of trouble once he saw that this was what the Clippers were doing.

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Also Curry was not shy at all when it came to dealing with Chris Paul. Maybe it has a lot to do with the fact that Paul and Curry do a lot of their training together in the off-season, but Curry didn’t seemed rattled at all by having to square off with Paul. Curry played with a confidence that many guards don’t play with against Paul unless your name is Kyrie Irving. At one point, everything that Curry was throwing up was going in even if it meant just chucking up a shot off the glass while getting fouled and watching it go in. Yes, THIS WAS LIFE last night.

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Jesus, even David Lee got some MVP chants last night which is why I still can’t believe half of the stuff that happened in last night’s game. Lee had another solid game with a final line of 24 pts on 9-16 shooting, 13 REB, 7 AST, 2 STL, and a +/- of +24 and started to spark talk on twitter after the game on whether or not he and Steph should both make the All-Star team or if only one person could go who should it be.

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

On a personal note, I really liked the play of Harrison Barnes in last night’s game. Barnes stat line isn’t eye popping where he netted 13 pts on 5-13 shooting, 1-2 from 3pt land, 9 REB, 4 AST, 1 BLK, 1 STL, and a team high +/- of +29. While watching Barnes in Summer League, I kept thinking to myself “oh man, I don’t know if the Warriors got the right guy in the draft”. The reason I felt that way was because Barnes seemed slow, especially on the defensive end. Also it didn’t help that he was usually the focus of comments from the bench by the coaching staff on needing to “Get Lower” and “Work Harder”. But as the season continues to churn, Barnes is slowly rounding into one of the Warriors better defenders and solid contributor while clocking around 25 minutes a game. As Barnes continues to get better, I’m hoping that last night’s performance on both ends of the floor will become a regular occurrence with Harrison netting more and more minutes.

Since I didn’t wake up with a massive headache today, I’m sure that I didn’t get dosed last night and everything that I saw during the game was not the product of a Molly filled roller coaster ride. Wait, why am I sweating? Wooooooo! I can’t believe this is life right now.