The Golden State Warriors showed why they're the NBA's team to beat with a 112-108 win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday. Stephen Curry and Harrison Barnes led the way in the latest edition of the league's best rivalry, which turned Oracle Arena into a college-like atmosphere at times during an exciting night.
NBA scores 2015: The Clippers’ best couldn’t beat the Warriors, and 3 other things we learned
Golden State remains unbeaten, Bradley Beal is clutch and everything else from an exciting Wednesday in the NBA.
Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Golden State has looked utterly unstoppable opening this season as the defending champion. The Clippers represented their toughest test yet, though. Both teams entered the game unbeaten and have a lengthy history of disliking each other. Rarely does a game in early November have as much brewing behind the scenes as this one did.
The basketball lived up to all that talk, too, with both teams putting forward stellar performances to keep each other at bay. The Warriors have often overwhelmed their opponents this season and set records with a 50-point win over Memphis in their last game. It’s a testament to the Clippers’ talent and composure that they were able to take Golden State’s biggest punches and respond in kind to make it a close game in the second half.
Blake Griffin (23 points, 10 rebounds) and Chris Paul (24 points, nine assists) were fantastic as usual, even though Paul sat out the final play with a strained right groin that the Clippers say will be reevaluated on Thursday.
Maybe even more impressive, the Clippers’ oft-criticized bench stepped up during a crucial second-half stretch to give L.A. an eight-point lead. Then the Warriors’ starters came back in and rallied. As good as the Clippers’ best players are, nobody in the game can match Golden State when the chemistry is working.
Still, the Clippers played about as well as they could have without winning. It took some truly miraculous plays by Curry and a big scoring run in the fourth quarter from Barnes for Golden State to stay unbeaten. What would ultimately prove to be the game-winning shot was classic Steph, stepping out from 30 feet to nail a jumper most players wouldn’t even try to take in garbage time:
Curry and company are just operating on another level right now. The team is outscoring its opponents by over 20 points per 100 possessions. The Cavaliers are next up and they only top their opponents by 10.4 points per 100 possessions. That's a relatively normal degree of domination for an NBA team. What the Warriors are doing, on the other hand, is outright ruthless. It's almost heartening just to see the Clippers playing them so competitively because at least we now know that's possible. Some vulnerability from the Warriors has to be encouraging after they spent their first four games pummeling everyone in sight.
And yet, after everything the Clippers threw at them, the Warriors still came out on top. The team is going to lose eventually, but the way Golden State is playing, it’s going to take a perfect storm.
3 things we learned
Bradley Beal's gonna get paid next summer. The Wizards opted not to sign Beal by design before the October deadline, which has set the stage for the 22-year-old shooting guard to earn a major payday in the summer. He's going to deserve it, too, as one of the most exciting two-guards in the league. Beal was amazing for Washington in the team's 102-99 win over the Spurs on Wednesday night, leading all scorers with 25 points, including three on the game-winning buzzer-beater. Beal pulled off a stellar jab-step that left LaMarcus Aldridge scrambling, then nailed the wide open three to give the Wizards a wild win:
Beal's shot came after Tony Parker tied the game by hitting a three of his own with seven seconds left. The wild ending was fitting after the Wizards opened the game with a 19-2 lead only to watch San Antonio respond with a 26-3 run. With Beal and John Wall, the Wizards should be a fun team to watch all season.
The Raptors beat the Thunder in OKC, might be the real deal. Toronto got to a 4-0 record without a real statement win. Now the team has one after beating the Thunder, 103-98, on the road Wednesday night. If there were any questions about the Raptors' ability to beat quality opponents, they've temporarily been put to rest. One night after beating the Mavericks in Dallas, Toronto followed it up by earning another victory in one of the NBA's toughest opposing arenas. DeMar DeRozan (28 points) and Jonas Valanciunas (17 points, 11 rebounds) led the way Wednesday for Toronto, which is now one of just two remaining unbeaten teams in the league along with the Warriors. The Raptors have outscored opponents by 8.3 points per 100 possessions through five games, per NBA.com. They've played three of their first five games on the road, including the past two against teams from the West. This is precisely how Toronto wanted to start the year.
The Blazers' backcourt can light it up. The LaMarcus Aldridge era in Portland has quickly given way to the dynamic one-two punch of point guard Damian Lillard and shooting guard C.J. McCollum. The duo's big scoring numbers have helped the Blazers earn back-to-back wins, including a 16-point victory over the Jazz on Wednesday. Portland is 3-2 and the future could be looking bright if some of the young frontcourt pieces, like Meyers Leonard and Noah Vonleh, put it together.
For now, Lillard and McCollum will at least make the Blazers a competitive, entertaining team. After combining for 62 points on Wednesday, the two guards make for one of the most prolific scoring combinations in the league so far this season:
| Players | PPG |
| Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, Thunder | 57.8 |
| Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, Blazers | 50.0 |
| Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, Warriors | 49.6 |
| Bradley Beal and John Wall, Wizards | 46.1 |
| Blake Griffin and Chris Paul, Clippers | 45.2 |
Play of the night
Usually there are two options when Blake Griffin is about to dunk on you: try to foul him and stop the play, or just get the heck of the way. Warriors big man Festus Ezeli reminded us that there's another option: go straight up with conviction and swallow that dunk attempt whole. Ezeli initially gets all ball on a high flying Griffin, then does a fantastic job of staying vertical in order to ensure he avoids the foul call. It's rare to see Griffin get rejected, let alone so viciously. The Warriors and Clips aren't messing around.
3 fun things
Scores
Wizards 102, Spurs 99 (Bullets Forever recap | Pounding The Rock recap)
Pacers 100, Celtics 98 (Indy Cornrows recap | CelticsBlog recap)
Hawks 101, Nets 87 (Peachtree Hoops recap | Nets Daily recap)
Cavaliers 96, Knicks 86 (Fear The Sword recap | Posting and Toasting recap)
Rockets 119, Magic 114 -- OT (The Dream Shake recap | Orlando Pinstriped Post recap)
Bucks 91, 76ers 87 (BrewHoop recap | Liberty Ballers recap)
Raptors 103, Thunder 98 (Raptors HQ recap | Welcome To Loud City recap)
Suns 118, Kings 97 (Bright Side of the Sun recap | Sactown Royalty recap)
Trail Blazers 108, Jazz 92 (Blazer's Edge recap | SLC Dunk recap)
Warriors 112, Clippers 108 (Golden State of Mind recap | Clips Nation recap)
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