Kevin Durant in Warrior's collapse

[hold this L]

Coming off 4 straight finals runs, not surprising some of the edge is off. That, and the league has adjusted in the last 2 years, slowly but surely. There's no way this years Clippers team does what happened last night to the 2017 Warriors. I also don't think last years Rockets take the 2017 team to seven. That team blitzed the West 2 years ago and basically needed a record 3point shooting night by Cleveland to not sweep through the playoffs. They haven't been quite that dominant since IMO.

Hunger/edge definitely plays a role and why teams don't generally repeat. Even in soccer for example, it took until Madrid recently for roughly 3 decades for a team to win the CL.. and that's 2 game elimination. Don't even compare this team to the 2017 team. I'm not sure these guys are as good as the 2018, 2016 (healthy) team tbh. If I don't see them completely step on the Clippers throat and murder them come game 3, alarm flags should be going throughout the Bay. Unfortunately, I still think the Rockets win in 6 unless this team changes the attitude they've had this entire season...

[Phoenix]

Hunger/edge definitely plays a role and why teams don't generally repeat. Even in soccer for example, it took until Madrid recently for roughly 3 decades for a team to win the CL.. and that's 2 game elimination. Don't even compare this team to the 2017 team. I'm not sure these guys are as good as the 2018, 2016 (healthy) team tbh. If I don't see them completely step on the Clippers throat and murder them come game 3, alarm flags should be going throughout the Bay. Unfortunately, I still think the Rockets win in 6 unless this team changes the attitude they've had this entire season...

Chemistry cannot be understated, so I would agree that the 2016 team *plays* alot better than this years team, just from a teamwork perspective, even without the Durant factor. Curry seemed like he had an 82 game hot streak and it truly felt like they were playing 'for' each other, it was insane. Something is definitely 'off' this year and beyond the other factors like fatigue/hunger/edge....Durant's free agent status has IMO put a cloud over things. The sense of joy that defined their play 2 years ago is missing, that was the essence of their culture and why KD wanted to join to begin with.

[Stephonit]

Hate to say it but Steph bears as much responsibility. Steph played great in the beginning but was cold at the end. He needed to takeover whatever KD was doing.

[hold this L]

Hate to say it but Steph bears as much responsibility. Steph played great in the beginning but was cold at the end. He needed to takeover whatever KD was doing.

Steph is to put it bluntly, the most responsible for this loss. There was no reason for him to stop shooting in the 3rd, which he did. You can't be the leader and act that way and hold no blame.

This team is not having issues scoring, but the defense has been atrocious so far. I remember last year or 2017, Draymond, Steph, KD, Klay and Iggy were the top 12 players in defensive rating in the playoffs. Huge, huge difference. This team needs to lock in defensively.

[nashwade]

thats the problem with one-dimension players, in this case Curry is more of a shooter than anything else. once he goes cold, you can pretty much take him down

as opposed to KD who can shoot, drive, post-up, get fouls - when something is not working you switch out

GSW wins if SC fouled out rather than KD