After a nail-biting loss in Game 1 to the Lakers, the Warriors responded with a 127-100 rout in Game 2.
The series now moves down to Los Angeles, as did Tom Tolbert, who called in on his way down the coast for Games 3 and 4.
He pointed out three causes behind the Warriors’ massive win:
One, it may have been accidentally fortuitous that JaMychal Green started because then they went to the high pick-and-roll with Draymond and put JaMychal Green in the corner, so you had shooters spaced out all over the court.
Two, was Draymond now guarding Anthony Davis, which I think he’ll probably do for the better part of the rest of the series.
And three, they didn’t foul as much as they did in game one. They lost the free throw battle 17-16 but a lot of those numbers were skewed, because points in the paint, I think they actually led in points in the paint. They got close in the end because of garbage time; there was like nine minutes of garbage time. So some of those numbers were a little skewed, but the 3-pointers stayed the same. They cut down on the points in the paint. They cut down on the free throws.
That said, Tolbert doesn’t expect the rest of the series to look how it did on Thursday night.
These things are not predictable, and while the adjustments made by the Warriors played a role, Tolber thinks playoff wins generally come down to one thing:
“Really what it comes down to a lot of times in the playoffs, who’s the most desperate team? Who is the team that really feels like their backs are up against the wall, and they’re gonna play desperate, they’re gonna be focused, and they’re gonna play harder. And that happens all the time in the playoffs.
All the adjustments are nice, and they definitely help, but the Warriors just played harder last night. They got after it for the Lakers got after it and you get the massive blow out that you got.”
Golden State can restore home court advantage by splitting the series in Los Angeles to turn it into a best-of-three situation. While they were 11-30 on the road in the regular season, they went 2-2 in Sacramento in the first round.
Listen to the full interview above. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Tolbert & Copes weekdays from 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.