Without the reigning NBA MVP, the Golden State Warriors faced a Portland Trail Blazers team in game one of their Western Conference semi-finals series. Fresh off handling the injury-riddled Los Angeles Clippers, Damian Lillard was bringing his team into a series with an upset on his mind, playing close to his hometown in Oakland and playing against a Warriors team without Stephen Curry due to injury. The Warriors came out strong and behind a triple-double from Draymond Green and 37 points from Klay Thompson, the Warriors held off a pesky Blazers squad.
Klay scored his 37 points in 37 minutes of action shooting 14-28 from the field including 7-14 from three-point range. Klay scorched the nets being the lead option for the Warriors offense. Meanwhile, Draymond Green continued to prove his importance to this Golden State offense by posting his second career playoff triple-double. Green scored 23 points on 6-14 shooting, grabbed 13 rebounds and handed out 11 assists in his stellar performance. Shaun Livingston scored 12 sliding in as the starting point guard with Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut scoring 10 a piece.
Despite Damian Lillard scoring 30 points, he struggled to get anything going for the Blazers only shooting 8-26 from the field and recently named 2016 NBA Most Improved Player C.J. McCollum struggled and only scored 12 points. Al-Farouq Aminu scored 15 and Allen Crabbe came off the bench to match Aminu’s effort with 15 points.
If the Blazers want to stand any sort of a chance against the Warriors, they are going to have to take advantage in game two against the Warriors with Stephen Curry still nursing his injury and they need to steal a win before he possibly returns in game three.
Game two will be on Tuesday at 10:30 PM ET on TNT.
