Golden State Warriors (22 - 10) @ Los Angeles Clippers (25 - 8)

Start time: 7:30 PM PST @ Staples Center
Local TV: CSN Bay Area
Nat TV: None

Probable starters for the Golden State Warriors:

C - Festus Ezeli
PF - David Lee
SF - Harrison Barnes
SG - Klay Thompson
PG - Stephen Curry

Probable starters for the Los Angeles Clippers:

C - DeAndre Jordan
PF - Blake Griffin
SF - Caron Butler
SG - Willie Green
PG - Chris Paul

Team leaders:
PPG - D. Lee (20.1) | B. Griffin (17.6)
RPG - D. Lee (11.0) | B. Griffin (8.8)
APG - S. Curry (6.5) | C. Paul (9.3)
SPG - S. Curry (1.6) | C. Paul (2.7)
BPG - F. Ezeli (1.1) | D. Jordan (1.6)

Chris Paul figured out towards the end of the game that LA's only chance is to hit the ground, feed upon superstar whistles, and pad an enormous advantage at the free throw line. If the Clippers find a way to live in the bonus in the first half - which isn't far fetched at Staples' Center - this game figures to be a lot closer than yesterday's.

At this point, the Warriors look convincingly better, so I'm gonna go ahead and spell out the only game plan in which I can see the Clippers winning:

1, make David Lee live between 19-15 feet. If he misses his first couple jumpers, it'll bug him, he'll overshoot to get out of the slump, and you'd love to keep him away from 5 feet, where his hooks and lay-ins are automatic. Also, enough with this DeAndre Jordan matchup. Lee feasts on slower defenders - particularly centers who go for the pump fake. Start Jordan on the 5, Griffin on HB (it'll fuel his fast breaks by letting him leak out, getting him off to a good start), and let Matt Barnes frustrate Lee, who does much worse against quicker defenders.

2, keep blitzing Curry. Yes, he'll hit the open man and make the right pass. It's the lesser of two evils. You'd rather live with a 16 and 11 game from Curry than letting him erupt for 30 points behind the arc. Blitz Curry, clog the lane for cutters, let Thompson, Jack, and Barnes try their luck from the perimeter all day. The law of averages states that they won't hit much higher than 40% for 3... Which is not as good as Curry and it's much less of a problem than letting Lee get off.

3, use the zebras to your advantage. Stumble through the lane, squeal, scream, flail your arms, mug the refs for no reason at all... Basically, do WHATEVER you can to get Golden State's big guys in foul trouble. Lee is an enormous catalyst, so run Griffin at him nonstop and odds are you'll be rewarded with clout calls all night long. Make like the Thunder and figure out a way to get Curry in foul trouble all night. If the Warriors' gruesome twosome can't crack 30 minutes a piece, it automatically cancels out your back-to-back disadvantage. Live at the line; even if you miss free throws, the goal is to bench the Warriors' starters and to make them hesitant to play tough D.

Literally, that's the ONLY way I can see the Clippers winning this game. They looked thoroughly outplayed yesterday.

I think that if Clippers go small, they would have a better chance. One thing we did that was really smart of the coaching staff to start the game was to put Lee on their Center, and put Beans/Ezeli on Blake. If they went small, they could force Warriors to play small, and take D. Lee out of his game by making him gaurd Blake by pushing the tempo and making it hard for Jackson to keep a slower center in the game. Let's hope they don't have the energy to do this with playing the Lakers the night before.

True, but they also switched Griffin onto Ezeli when THEY were on defense. Matching Griffin up with Lee sounds great on paper, but (for whatever reason) it hasn't been very successful this season. Griffin is a +50% shooter vs Golden State on his career, but in 2 games this year? 26%. And despite how they start the game, Lee and Griffin always seem to end up battling each other.

Conventional wisdom suggests he'll have a bounce back game on Saturday, but so far the Warriors have managed to convince Griffin that the midrange is his friend. I think LA's only chance is to put him on a wing to start the game so he can yam an easy fast break hoop and once Griffin gets hyped its a long night from there...

Going for our 23rd win, we had 23 wins ALL of last season.

Warriors will be well rested, all while the Clippers will be playing after the well anticipated battle of L.A tonight. I like the set up.

Young celebrities in LA on friday night. Damn it would be hard to get properly rested.

I got a good value bet with my sports bookie.

A Warriors win and tonights game is more then 202 points combined then I win $5.99 on the dollar.

Logic is warriors are gonna run them out of the gym and hoping that it's a high scoring affair.

WISH ME LUCK!

PAWNO wrote:I got a good value bet with my sports bookie.

A Warriors win and tonights game is more then 202 points combined then I win $5.99 on the dollar.

Logic is warriors are gonna run them out of the gym and hoping that it's a high scoring affair.

WISH ME LUCK!

That is a good value. I'm just putting down $100 but I'm getting 6 points.

let's do this, combined on this game i have 82,80 euros, warrios don't lose more than 10 parlayed with over 194,5 points, that's 50 eu, and 32,80 for warriors money line.
since i've already made my 300 today, it could be nice finish to the good working night.
jamal crawford is out, will see how much that will affect the game.

game time!

we just can't hit anything so far

lethargic
party party

don't even want to search for a better link..

Dear lord....

it's so bad one just can't even get angry
no risk on defense to try and fasten the pace, no doubleteams, no cutting, driving, nothing, whole team looks completely unprepared