“Hey…hey, hey hey…Where y’all going? Where y’all going?”
Those disgruntling remarks of wondering where Dubs fans were leaving to in their first game inside of the Chase Center back in October were made by none other than the passionate and intense starting Point Guard for the Clippers, Patrick Beverley, after he and his new-look Clippers (still without Paul George then) stomped all over Stephen Curry and the talent-devoid Warriors after a cataclysmic summer that saw both Klay Thompson go out with an ACL tear in the NBA Finals, and Kevin Durant leave the nest to head out East to Brooklyn to join the Nets in free agency.
And to be quite honest not much has changed since then. The Clippers still pose a threat as the league’s most intimidating and complete team, while the Warriors are still the cellar dwellers of the NBA 21 weeks into the season. The Staples Center has seen a bevy of success between the Clippers and their roommates in the Lakers equally, but the new Chase Center hasn’t had that kind of luck.
Back when the Dubs were still sorting out 8-man rotations with unrecognizable players, this Warriors team in the month of March is even more unlikely to possess household names to put on the floor, still with the worst record in the NBA as they are probably wishing for a high draft lottery pick at the end of this year. As for their roster, it’s just been 10-day contracts handed out to players like Kleenex swipes to customers from restaurant tenants with all the Coronavirus news coming out of the headlines.
But for the Clippers, who enter Tuesday’s contest hobbled from a loss to the Lakers in one of the most publicized games of the year, a win against the lowly Warriors could be the antidote to right the ship. Losing to the best team in the West is understandable, but losing to the worst team in the conference would be the worst of bad looks for a team that’s been handed speculations of chemistry issues since December began.
These Warriors are no pushovers though and have actually been a dandy to watch this year as a scrappy, feisty team that claws for a bucket every possession. They picked up wins against Denver and Philadelphia last week and took Toronto down to the wire in Stephen Curry’s return game, ultimately succumbing to Norman Powell’s career-best 37-point breakout game.
So what kind of story will be drawn up tonight? Will we see Kawhi Leonard and Paul George replicate their evisceration of the Warriors from earlier this year, or will this gritty Warriors team, who will be without Stephen Curry due to an unforeseen “illness”, play hard and find a way to make this one competitive down the stretch?
We’ll find out at tip-off, which occurs at 10:30 p.m. ET on TNT.
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