Photo credit: @warriors

By: Ana Kieu

The Golden State Warriors headed down to the Southland for Game 3 against the Los Angeles Clippers at Staples Center Thursday night. The Warriors had one agenda: Win the game for a 2-1 series lead.

The Warriors sure knew how to celebrate National High Five Day, and guess what else happened? Some French fans flew out to LA to support the Warriors, which was a pleasant sight to see. The French love their pro basketball.

The Warriors’ starting five featured Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut. The Warriors were locked in during practice, the game went underway in LA and the dominance continued.

The game’s first bucket went to Kevin Durant. Durant scored the clutch basket at 11:16 of the first quarter. With the point, Durant (3,706) passed Magic Johnson (3,701) for 14th place on the NBA’s all-time postseason scoring list. The Warriors then old a classic tale as Draymond Green blocked and Stephen Curry tripled for a 9-3 lead with 9:26 left in the first.

However, all eyes were on Kevin Durant, who scored 10 points –5 of 5 from the field–with 6:03 left in the first. Durant made a 2-point bucket to justify his fiery performance. The Warriors made nine straight field goals along with a 3-pointer by Stephen Curry to close out the first with a 41-24 lead.

The second quarter wasn’t as high-scoring, but it was exciting nonetheless. Klay Thompson joined in on the Warriors’ Splash Party with a 3. Thompson added a bucket. Thompson threw down a dunk, too.

The Warriors continued to maintain their double-digit lead, thanks to Kevin Durant. Durant expanded the Warriors’ halftime lead to 73-52 at the break. Durant helped turn the Warriors’ defense into offense with his sweet plays such as knocking down jumpers to pull his defenders out of the paint and making buckets to add to his point total.

You could say the game was in favor of the Warriors. Why’s that? The Warriors went on a 14-0 run to open the third quarter. Andre Iguodala put the exclamation mark to the run.

Kevin Durant’s crossovers in slow-motion were amazing sights to see. Durant was definitely a top-5 player with his scoring plays from the get-go tonight.

But let’s not forget about Andre Iguodala. Iguodala threw down a couple of dunks and almost broke the rim at some of those moments. Moreover, the score wasn’t even close as the Warriors led 109-76 at the end of the third.

The almost rim-breaking type of moments transpired into the fourth quarter. The Warriors were so good at those moments that you could sing to yourself, “Meet me at the rim” instead of “Meet me in the middle” (Yes, I had to throw in a song reference from “The Middle” by Zedd, Maren Morris and Grey).

The Clippers have a young core of players and they prevented the 2018 NBA Champions from winning by 30-plus points tonight. Still, the Warriors defeated the Clippers 132-105. The Warriors achieved their agenda to improve to 2-1, while the Clippers fall to 1-2.

Kevin Durant led the Warriors with 38 points, 7 assists and 4 rebounds. Steph Curry had 21 points, 5 rebounds and 1 assist. Andre Iguodala had 15 points, 3 assists and 2 rebounds. Klay Thompson had 12 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists. Kevon Looney had 10 points and 1 rebound. Draymond Green had 8 points, 10 assists and 6 rebounds. Andrew Bogut had 8 points, 14 rebounds and 5 assists. Alfonzo McKinnie had 6 points and 8 rebounds. Quinn Cook had 5 points, 2 assists and 1 rebound. Jacob Evans had 5 points. Shaun Livingston had 2 points, 2 assists and 4 rebounds. Jordan Bell had 2 points, 1 rebound and 1 assist. Jonas Jerebko added 2 rebounds and 2 assists.

The Warriors and Clippers meet again for Game 4 at Staples Center Sunday at 12:30 pm PT on ABC.