SAN FRANCISCO — Coach Steve Kerr abruptly faces a playoff conundrum: start out Stephen Curry all over again for Game 2 of the playoffs for Golden Point out and move Jordan Poole again to the bench or stick with what labored so properly in the opener and be added careful with Curry.
’Yeah, we’ll cross that bridge when we occur to it,” Kerr claimed, smiling.
Poole shined in his playoff debut with 30 details, remaining in the setting up lineup as Curry returned from a foot injury, and the Warriors smothered Nikola Jokic to conquer the Denver Nuggets 123-107 on Saturday evening in Recreation 1 of the first-round sequence.
For now, Curry positive experienced a blast observing Poole and Splash Brother Klay Thompson do their point from the opening suggestion.
“I have no anticipations on what is future simply because we’re generally trying to determine this out because this is kind of a challenging circumstance to offer with in terms of the swift ramp up that I have experienced and this is a playoff-style depth and environment,” Curry explained.
Healthful at last, Thompson returned to the playoff stage for the initially time in virtually 3 many years following two significant injuries and scored 19 details with 5 3-tips.
“Jordan Poole, wow, what a playoff debut,” Thompson explained. “… He’s just remarkable. What a star in the earning.”
The perimeter combination of Curry, Poole and Thompson proved way too a great deal for the Nuggets — with Poole acknowledging “it’s fairly lethal.”
Jokic had 25 details and 10 rebounds for Denver, dealing with stifling defense in the paint from Draymond Inexperienced and Kevon Looney when shooting 12 for 25.
Jokic credited the two of them for making his pictures difficult.
“They have the applications. I imagine I missed a pair of easy types, but I consider that they were being defending me actually nicely,” Jokic said. “So I have to have to be greater. I just want to at minimum make the layups and quick photographs.”
Activity 2 in the very best-of-7 series is Monday night time at Chase Heart — which hosted its first playoff match because opening in fall 2019. Lovers gained black T-shirts looking at “Gold Blooded.”
Curry arrived off the bench to lead 16 details in 21 minutes following lacking just a thirty day period with a sprained ligament in his still left foot. The two-time MVP examined it in a scrimmage Thursday, came off the bench and had a minutes restriction. He checked in at the 5:58 mark of the initial quarter to a rousing ovation.
Curry missed his to start with five pictures in advance of a layup that went in on a goaltending simply call from Aaron Gordon 1:14 prior to halftime, then knocked down a 3 from the top rated of the arc as the Warriors took a 58-47 guide at the split.
Golden State gained its last 5 online games to stop the frequent period and kept rolling.
“Give them credit. This is a incredibly talented group with incredible playoff expertise. I believe the important extend was the end of the 2nd quarter,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone claimed. “You never want to enjoy from behind in this setting up from this group.”
Jokic averaged 28 points, 15.8 rebounds and 8.8 assists in the 4 matchups with the Warriors, three gained by the Nuggets but only 1 by double digits. But Green hadn’t confronted Denver this season, so his addition was enormous.
“You experience it. He stepped it up a notch,” Poole explained of Eco-friendly. “Being our chief, we feed off his electrical power.”
Environmentally friendly strike a 3 from the major in excess of Jokic with 1:47 remaining in the 3rd, then the Nuggets star committed a turnover times later on as Gary Payton II capitalized with a basket that put Golden Condition up 89-68.
Green wound up with 12 factors, 9 helps, 6 rebounds and a few blocked photographs for a Warriors team that lost final yr in the perform-in spherical to Memphis and is again in the playoffs for the initial time considering the fact that shedding the 2019 NBA Finals in six online games to Toronto.
That was Thompson’s very last playoff game, when he suffered a torn ACL in his left knee that expected surgical treatment ahead of he tore his proper Achilles tendon in November 2020 and experienced that repaired — costing him much more than 2 1/2 yrs until finally he came again in January.
Gordon and Thompson had been strike with double technicals at the 6:25 mark of the second.
“We just cannot defeat ourselves and the Warriors in the very same recreation,” Malone said, “and we did that tonight.”
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