On their first match of playoffs since 2019, Golden State Warriors won the first game of the series against Denver Nuggets (107-123). Stephen Curry played a basketball game after one month because of his injury (clearly, he started on the bench). Jordan Poole was the main character and the start that gave Warriors this first win.
Poole, one of the favourites to win the Most Improved Player Award this year, made an awesome second half on his first match of playoffs on his career. He scored 30 points, the most scorer of the match, with a 9 out of 13 in field shots. He achieved deeps triples, he did dunks and moved perfectly on free shots line. Poole, one more time, played as a young star.
The losses of ball of the Steve Kerr´s team harmed the start of the match. However, Steve Kerr knew to wait until the last minutes of the second quarter to take out his trio composed by Curry, Poole and Klay Thompson. These three guys were the biggest source of annotation of Warriors. They closed the first half with a 18-4 and gave Warriors an advantage of 58-47 until the break.
The pivot of Nuggets, Nikola Jokic, started strong but he was deflating as the match progressed. Warriors completed a great defensive performance with players like Kevon Looney and Draymond Green. The Serbian player finished with 25 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists, numbers under his average on other games. Warriors did constantly the pick-and-roll play and that tired Jokic a lot.
With a tired Jokic on the second half, the things would be easier for Warriors. Denver never had any opportunities on the last quarter and Warriors achieved the victory. Kerr also gave rest to some relevant players when there were still 4 minutes until the end. Curry ended the match with 16 points on the 21 minutes that he played. Thompson scored 19 points with 5 out of 10 on triples. Both teams have a rest day until they see the faces again for the second match of this exciting match series.
After the match, Steve Kerr, talked about the amazing performance of Draymond Green. The coach said that the defence of Green to Jokic was not a surprise, said by him, is an “Hall of Famer”.
Jorge Barbero
