Evidence suggests GS needs Steph at Portland

After the Portland Trail Blazers defeated the Golden State Warriors 120-108 on Saturday, trimming the Warriors’ series lead to 2-1, the conversation, for a minute, was centered on the great Damian Lillard. And rightfully so. Lillard, with 40 points including an 8-for-13 3-point line, was splendid, as he often is as easily the most under-appreciated superstar in today’s game. The fact that this guy wasn’t an All-Star, Kobe Bryant’s last hurrah or not, was a joke. He deserved the attention for what he did to the Warriors Saturday night.

But it won’t last long.

Likely before this story even gets published, the conversation will have sharply shifted to the man to whom Lillard is so often compared, Stephen Curry, and whether he should play in Game 4 after missing the last four games with a sprained right MCL. You’ll hear a lot of people saying he shouldn’t. It would be a panic move. The Warriors don’t need Curry to beat the Blazers.

That last part, however, isn’t necessarily true. At least not when the games are being played in Portland, as Monday’s Game 4 obviously will be. Consider that over the course of Golden State’s historically dominant season, only one team has managed to beat them twice. Care to take a stab at who that team is? Indeed, it’s Portland, which smoked the Warriors by 32 points back in late February. And if you’re thinking about blaming that one on a Curry absence as well, think again. He played. Played quite well, actually. Scored 31 points. Draymond Green was two assists shy of a triple double. And they still lost. By THIRTY-TWO.

Do the math, and the Warriors have now lost their last two games in Portland by a combined 44 points. To act as if the Blazers, who we ought to stop underestimating right about now, are some kind of pushover, some kind of red capret to the conference finals, is …

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