After one of the best first half outings by the Warriors, I was ready to call game. Klay was feeling it, Looney was a menace on the boards (and put up buckets too), and the two former MVPs did their job. This would’ve been a “We here, we back” type of piece versus a more frustrated and somber reflection on last night’s game.

In his post game presser, Stephen Curry said something along the lines of “paying more attention to the details”- so that is what I did when I rewatched clips from the game. The first thing I noticed - a frustrated KD. The most glaring example came late in the fourth quarter when Klay missed a stepback wing jumper over Harden. Maybe this moment in the first half foreshadowed what was to come - after a Klay miss, a Warriors offensive rebound, and a second try, reverse layup by…(you guessed it) Klay, KD clapped his hands in frustration, shook his head in disagreement with his teammate’s decision, and trotted back on defense. 

The feeling in the second half felt eerily similar to the adjustment period when we first got KD and games 4 and 5 of last year’s Western Conference finals. Durant took seven of the last eight shots in the final minutes of the game and made two. Nine times out of ten he is above 50% on those looks. The only time we’ve really questioned these shots was when the Warriors’ season was on the line. And in a game 7 on the road, when Kerr reminded KD he had the Splash Brothers, (and with a little help from the Rockets shooting 0-27 from beyond the arc) the team secured the win. 

The blame is not solely on KD nor is it the basketball gods righting the wrong of a clear missed call before the Harden game winner. 

If you’ve read this far you know what is coming next. You know who needs to be questioned, you know who takes out Steph in the middle of the fourth quarter, you know who is in charge of the rotations - Steve Kerr. The Warriors coach has been under a lot of scrutiny over his decision to implement new rotations this season. He cites that the team is different and the Warriors are stronger when they stagger Steph and KD. Well if the games since Curry’s return are enough of a sample size to form an opinion - consider the majority of fans’ to be unfavorable. 

The two aforementioned details that proved to be integral in what transpired - may be the reason why Warriors fans are not quick to say, “We here, we back.” Can the Warriors get a win streak over two games? When was the last time we lost three games in a row at home (this is no way to say goodbye to Oracle)?

After last night’s game - I perused Twitter for the best reactions to the best game of the NBA season. Fellow NBA players praised Harden, social media meme’d KD’s attempt to save the ball, Daryl Morey and the injured Chris Paul likened the officiating to Netflix’s Birdbox...long story short - content is gold after games like these. 

My personal favorite was one that said Steph Curry had “Ghandi level of patience.” Even if it was a regular season game in January, with all that transpired, and having such a big lead last night - I cannot fathom how a franchise player only takes one shot in the final 3 minutes. The greatest shooter, can kill you from anywhere on the court, “I’ll put you in a spin cycle at the laundromat,” Baby Faced Assassin got 1 look in the deciding moments of the game. Maybe it’s time for KD to do what he did in that adjustment period when Steph was struggling - remind the latter he has and will always have the green light.