Golden State Warriors: Help is on the way, but will it matter?

Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors will have Klay Thompson back for Game 4 of the NBA Finals, but will it matter?

Stephen Curry reminded the world once again Thursday night during Game 3 of the NBA Finals, just how explosive he can be, torching the Toronto Raptors for 47 points to go along with eight rebounds and seven assists. Despite Curry’s heroics, the Golden State Warriors fell to the Raptors 123-109, making Curry just the third player in NBA history to score 45 or more points in an NBA Finals game and lose, joining LeBron James and Jerry West.

Meanwhile, while Curry was doing his best one man band impression, Toronto was putting on a show of its own, picking apart the Golden State defense with brilliant ball movement and hot shooting, leading to six players finishing in double figures. They finished the game with 30 assists as a team and a field goal percentage north of 50 percent.

Curry needs more help if the Warriors are to have any hope of taking back control of this series, and it sounds like help is on the way. According to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, Klay Thompson is expected to play Game 4 on Friday night. There was hope that Kevin Durant would also be able to suit up for Game 4, but he has since been ruled out.

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Having Thompson back, even at less than 100 percent is obviously a huge boost to the Warriors. No disrespect to Quinn Cook, Shaun Livingston, or Alfonzo McKinnie but none of them impact the game, on either side of the ball, quite like Thompson does. The question still remains though, how effective will Thompson be when he returns, and same for Durant should he return. But the even bigger question looming over the series is, will it even matter?

Both players are dealing with leg injuries, Thompson a hamstring and Durant a calf, and the truth is nobody knows how each player will be affected by said injuries. We assume that having both players back will shift the momentum at least slightly, but there’s no guarantee.

Durant hasn’t played a game in over a month, so even if he does return he’ll be knocking off rust and getting his conditioning up to speed during live games, a tall task. As for Thompson, he’ll surely be asked to jump right in and guard one of Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, or Kawhi Leonard, a tall task in its own right.

Which brings us to the other side of the equation when asking what difference will it make when Thompson returns to the lineup, and should Durant return at some point; the Toronto Raptors.

Toronto is arguably the best team Golden State has faced during their now five year run atop the NBA. They’re the type of team perfectly built to give even a fully healthy Warriors team a run for their money. They boast multiple long, rangy defenders to handle Curry, Thompson, and Durant. Marc Gasol gives them a solid defensive anchor when they play more traditional lineups, while Serge Ibaka is the perfect mobile big for modern NBA small ball lineups.

Offensively, they’ve got multiple ways to beat you and aside from the abysmal start to the 3rd quarter in Game 2, have been clicking on all cylinders. Lowry, Leonard, and Gasol as well as Danny Green and Fred VanVleet can all make shots from the perimeter. Siakam is a streaky shooter but is a terror in the open floor and has an underrated array of moves in the post.

On top of that, much like their opponent, they play a very unselfish style of basketball, hence the 6 guys in double figures and 30 assists during Game 3. They’ve been the underdog since they reached the Eastern Conference Finals and they play with a chip on their shoulders.

Head coach Nick Nurse has been brilliant in his first year at the helm, and that hasn’t changed in the playoffs. His decision to go to a box-and-1 late in the 4th quarter of Game 2 was maligned by many, but it worked. The Warriors had nobody to create offense besides Curry and hadn’t scored for almost six minutes when Andre Iguodala drilled that huge 3 to stretch the lead and all but shut the door.

This isn’t the 2016 Golden State Warriors. With this version of Curry, even without Thompson and Durant, that team might have been able to pull this off. The leftovers from that team in Iguodala, Livingston, and Bogut had a little more spring in their steps, could give you a little more. Marreese Speights and Leandro Barbosa, heck, even Brandon Rush and Ian Clark could give you an offensive spark when needed.

This team doesn’t have that. They put together arguably the greatest starting 5 in NBA history, but that also comes at a cost, mainly to the bench depth. And they aren’t facing the 2015 Cleveland Cavaliers without Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. The Raptors are flat-out good, hungry, and well coached.

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The mantra in Golden State since the inception of this group has been ‘Strength in Numbers’. The Warriors better hope that number starts growing, and even if it does, it might not matter.

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