After their 127-104 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday night, it's easy to assume the Golden State Warriors have finally shown what they can do when operating at full strength.
They held the lethal backcourt combination of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum in check while playing in the arena that ranked as the No. 6 home-court advantage in NBA.com's annual GM survey. They exploded on offense behind a barrage of three-pointers, pulling ahead with a 41-point third quarter and never looking back.
They even received an unlikely bench contribution, as Ian Clark dropped a 22-spot on a perfect 8-of-8 from the field.
But this isn't the best Golden State will play in 2016-17, because Stephen Curry masked so many of the team's flaws.
Curry scored a mere five points during the first half, pestered by multiple defenders on many possessions and often taking a backseat to his teammates—both the fellow stars and the less heralded role players such as Clark. But he went supernova during a 23-point third quarter, highlighted by a quintet of triples and the dazzling reverse layup you can see below:
It was 2015-16 Curry showing up once again—the same one who won MVP in unanimous fashion for the first time in league history while obliterating three-point records. It was the version of the point guard who could seemingly will contested threes through the nylon.
And that was exactly what Golden State needed.
Curry's one-man excellence propelled the Warriors to a 27-point lead after the third quarter, even though they retreated to the visitor's locker room at halftime with a mere six-point advantage. From there, it was easy to keep control of the momentum as Portland desperately pushed the pace and struggled to recover in transition.
Curry's heroics left aftershocks that still worked in Golden State's favor.
But the final score, and Curry's individual impact, help distract from the struggles that continue to plague Golden State. Its defense in particular was shaky during the first half, with numerous players switching incorrectly and the whole team relying on interior defense to make up for its perimeter mishaps.
As ESPN.com's Zach Lowe pointed out, it wasn't even the newcomers making mistakes:
Lowe wasn't alone in his observations. Anthony Slater of the San Jose Mercury News noted that while Golden State entered halftime with a lead, it still didn't feel as if everything was clicking:
Defense wasn't the only concern.
Clark (3-of-3 from downtown) and Curry (5-of-10) make the team's three-point showing look respectable, but their teammates combined to go just 2-of-13 (15.4 percent). The Warriors are still missing the downtown abilities of Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson.
Durant has been able to adjust, thriving from mid-range and torturing smaller opponents after switches. He finished with 20 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field against Portland. Thompson, however, experienced no reprieve from his shooting nightmare. The other Splash Brother recorded 14 points against the Blazers, but that came on a 6-of-17 outing from the field.
Together, Durant and Thompson fired 10 three-point attempts. They made zero.
On the season, the former is now 3-of-13 (.231) from beyond the arc. The latter is a miserable 3-of-28 (.107) and is experiencing zero success from the corners, as NBA on ESPN pointed out:
Tuesday night's blowout victory will give the impression the Warriors are back on track. They're now 3-1 [insert jokes here] during the opening salvo of their redemption campaign and beat a strong opponent on the road in dominant fashion.
Curry's third quarter alone will give highlight outlets more fodder than they could possibly request. But even some of those threes were bailout triples—the products of broken-down plays that resulted in contested opportunities only generational talents could make consistently.
We still haven't seen the best from these Warriors. We won't until their defensive communication is better and every historically excellent shooter is finding the bottom of the net.
But that will happen before long. By then, other teams will sympathize with the Blazers.
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