Bleacher Report’s prediction for the Warriors-Trail Blazers series is the general consensus of most sports writers. Four out of five CBS Sports Staff writers agree with that sentiment, with one giving the Blazers one win in the series.
I’m predicting the Warriors sweep the Blazers, even if they manage to make a couple of the games interesting. And considering Portland was in the game up until the Warriors outscored them 33-21 in the fourth quarter, it seems likely we’ll see at least one more close game between the teams.
Portland honestly would’ve had a chance at making the series interesting if it weren’t for the injury to Jusuf Nurkic, but now they’ll need to lean heavily on the shoulders of Damian Lillard and C J McCollumn. The two went for 34 and 41, respectively, in Game 1.
The Blazers’ bench went an abysmal 3-14 from the field, contributing just nine points. The Warriors’ bench only contributed 22 points, but 12 came from red-hot Ian Clark who was 4-5 from the field.
Otherwise it was the usual suspects for Golden State: Steph Curry had 29, five rebounds, and four assists, Kevin Durant led the team in points with 32 on 12-20 shooting, he also grabbed ten boards, and Draymond Green filled the stat sheet with 19, 12 rebounds, nine assists, five blocks, and three steals – oh yeah, and he went 6-10 from the field.
It’s going to be hard to stop an offensive juggernaut like that. Klay Thompson was even quiet in the game and they still won by twelve.
1-8 match-ups usually go in favor of the top seed, but Golden State knows all too well that just because a team is the 8th seed doesn’t mean they can’t win.
Ten years ago in the 2007 playoffs, Golden State was the eighth seed and upset the first seed Dallas Mavericks 4-2. Ironically enough, if the Jazz wins their series against the Clippers, that will set up a rematch of the 07 Western Conference Semi-Finals.
That year, Utah went on to the Western Conference Finals; but I don’t know if that’ll be the case this year.
Interesting sidenote: the Spurs won the 2007 NBA Finals against LeBron and the Cavaliers.
Maybe history does repeat itself. We’ll see.
