What in the world is happening to the Warriors?

By Kels Dayton
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Updated: June 10, 2015

(AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

By: Kels Dayton

Steph Curry is horribakdc z.

Wow. Sorry. Let me start over.

The Warrijora Curry can’t… he can’t not make…. he can’t do anyfing rigt. DICK CHENEY

Ahhemm…excuse me. Sorry.

What I’m trying to say is that something is broken with the Golden State Warriors. Like, really broken. It’s so bad that it’s gotten me flustered, panicky, out of my rhythm. It’s like 2015 Defensive Player of the Year Matthew Dellavedova is guarding me.

rrrfdknsal ,m

Damn it. He just dove on my keyboard.

Chalk it up to tremendous defense, Dellavedova Fatigue, the Warriors’ youth and inexperience, or if you want, just give all of the credit to LeBron.

Of course, Curry was called for the foul here. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Of course, Curry was called for the foul on this “Delly!” flop. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Whatever the hell is happening in this series, it’s hitting Golden State like a plague, blackening their teeth and transforming them into poor-shooting, turnover-prone Zombies.

This isn’t the same squad that won 67 games, led the league in virtually every offensive category and ran through the Western Conference playoffs like it was the WAC Tournament. It’s not the same Steph Curry who deservedly captured the league’s MVP award (along with everyone’s imagination), after a brilliant, downright-innovative season that challenged the core values of curmudgeon basketball fans. (You gotta have a big. Centers win championships. Live by the three, die by the three).

This isn’t the Klay Thompson who finished in the top 10 in the league in PPG and effective field goal percentage, or the Steve Kerr that looked like a rookie Phil Jackson in guiding this group to an altitude even their mothers didn’t think they could reach this year.

No, these Warriors are shook. They’re nervous, jumpy, unprepared. They’ve been taken completely out of their game, and as of the morning of Wednesday, June 10, completely out of this series.

NBA history (and the people that write Finals press releases) tell us that in a series tied 1-1, the winner of Game 3 goes on to spill champagne on the Larry O’Brien trophy 83.8% of the time. That’s a pretty daunting number.

What’s scarier is that the Warriors’ malaise didn’t just enter in through the arena ether in Game 3. It’s been there the entire series. Except for the last 15 minutes of Game 1, Cleveland has absolutely dominated the action.

It makes no sense, either–because as every basketball fan already knows, the Warriors are a better team than these watered-down Cavs.

Golden State has the more talented roster, is deeper, more balanced, and theoretically ought to be tougher to defend.

But the Cavs do have LeBron.

Kerr has (interestingly) adopted the strategy that he’s going to make James beat them, and by averaging 41 points per game through the first three games of the series, he’s doing just that.

LeBron has scored, assisted on, or otherwise “created” 200 of the 291 Cavaliers points through the first three games of the series. I personally have never written this before, but I really believe that he’s been Jordan-like in these Finals. There’s no other way to say it.

MJ averaged 41 points (the most ever), 8.5 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game during the ’93 Finals, which many consider the apex of his playing career. Right now, LeBron’s at 41 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists per. He’s single-handedly carrying a bunch of scrubs and Timofey Mozgov to the brink of an NBA title, and at this point, I’m pretty much convinced that I could have replaced Dellavedova in the starting lineup and the Cavs would still be up 2-1.

Though the Warriors seemed pressure-proof and teflon-tough during their run through the Western Conference Playoffs, this series has almost developed a 2012 Heat/Thunder feel to it now.

An up-and-coming but inexperienced team with a “Next face of the NBA” star (then Durant) wins Game 1 at home in comeback fashion despite trailing most of the game. His team plays poorly at home in Game 2 and drops a game they should have won, then falls victim to LeBron, who is on a Mission from God to win a title (then his first championship, and now his first in Cleveland).

A much-anticipated NBA Finals matchup turns into a massacre, and a distraught Kels Dayton descends into weeks of depression. It’s all happened before. It’s nothing new.

As disappointing as a Cavs rout would be for NBA fans who value team basketball, parity, and the belief that one man shouldn’t be able to be the sole difference between winning the lottery and winning the title, it’d be even more perplexing for the once-juggernaut Warriors.

Steph Curry shot 5-for-23 in Game 2? For seemingly no reason?

He scored just three points in the first half of Game 3? Threw a behind the back pass to nobody in particular with 20 seconds on the shot clock and four minutes left in a four-point game? Turned it over 12 times in two games?

Draymond Green lost all of the self-confidence he had built for himself during his 25 years of life in the span of 48 hours?

Klay Thompson looked like an opossum–not even a deer– in the headlights in Game 3, shooting 6-for-16 and 2-of-7 from three?

Steve Kerr had ABSOLUTELY zero answers for any of it?

Why is this happening???

For our own sanity, for closure on this 2015 season, and for a better understanding of the meaning of life, I hope we do figure this out.

But after seeing what happened Game 3, I’m not sure we ever will.