Steph on one side, Kawhi on the other, two teams that — on paper — feel like they should’ve been locked into a real playoff series weeks ago.

Instead, one of them is going home on Thursday night.

Golden State spent the year trying to hold things together while the roster kept changing around Steph. Injuries hit them hard and it just never really clicked for long enough. The Clippers went the opposite route — dug themselves a massive hole early, and then spent months climbing out of it just to land right here anyway.

So now all of that gets boiled down into one night.

Either Steph finds a way to carry a team that hasn’t had much stability all year, or Kawhi keeps this steady Clippers group rolling the way they have been since late December — a stretch where L.A. went 35-19 while Golden State was well under .500 and just trying to survive.

This Season Never Let Golden State Settle In

Before you even get into matchups or schemes, this is really the story of their season. It wasn’t just that the Warriors struggled — they never looked like the same team for more than a few weeks at a time. Steph missed 27 games, Butler’s season ended in January, Moody went down later, and the lineups just kept changing on them.

To put it in perspective, Golden State had just one five-man lineup play more than 65 minutes together all season.

One.

The Clippers had eight different lineups clear that mark.

That’s the difference between a team that’s been able to build something and one that’s been trying to piece it together on the fly for six months.

And somehow, through all of that, they still looked like the Warriors. They still let it fly from three. They still moved the ball. They still tried to speed games up with extra passes and chaos on the other end. Even with everything changing around them, they still finished near the top of the league in threes, ball movement, and steals.

That’s what makes them tricky. The record doesn’t look like Golden State. The style still does.

Curry, even in just 43 games, still gave them 26.6 a night and was the engine he's always been. But tonight isn’t a normal Steph game. He’s still coming back from the knee issue, and he’s expected to be around 32 minutes.

That changes things. Normally, the formula is simple: give Steph the ball, let him tilt the floor, and live with it. But if he’s only out there in bursts, the minutes when he’s sitting suddenly become the game. They had a lousy -1.6 +/- in those minutes throughout the regular season.

That’s where Brandin Podziemski comes in.

He played all 82 games, and on a team like this, that matters more than it usually would. He’s been one of the few steady pieces — rebounds, moves it, competes, and he's taken on more offensively as the year’s gone on. He’s not Steph, but he’s a big part of why Golden State still has enough to hang in a game like this.

Then there’s Kristaps Porzingis, who feels like the real swing factor.

In theory, he’s exactly what you want next to Curry — size, shot-making, and someone the defense actually has to respect away from the rim. The issue is the timing hasn’t quite lined up. He’s been in and out, and the shot hasn’t really settled lately. If the Clippers are going to load up on Steph, Porzingis has to punish that.

That’s why this feels like a game where a lot has to go right at once for Golden State.

Steph has to be great in limited minutes. Podziemski has to keep things steady when he’s off the floor. Draymond has to hold everything together defensively. And Porzingis probably has to make the Clippers pay for helping too much.

It’s not impossible.

But it’s a lot to ask in a one-game setting.

The Clippers Took The Long Way Back

At one point, the Clippers were 15 games under .500. That’s usually the kind of hole that ends your season before the new year. Instead, they chipped away at it for months and somehow worked their way all the way back above .500.

They haven't been perfect, but, boy, have they been steady.

And a lot of that starts with Kawhi. He’s had one of those quiet, “oh yeah, he’s still that guy” seasons. Since they started to turn their season around, he's been at 28 a night, shooting over 50% from the field and 40% from three. But more than anything, he’s just been reliable. You know what you’re getting from him late in games. You know where the ball is going. There’s not a lot of guesswork with them.

And that’s kind of the key difference in this matchup.

The Clippers don’t need this game to get weird. Golden State probably does.

L.A. can just play their game. Slow it down, let Kawhi work in the mid-range, let Garland handle some of the creation, space the floor with Lopez, and keep Collins involved as an efficient finisher. Then defensively, throw Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr. at Steph and make every touch feel at least a little uncomfortable.

Garland was a big part of that settling-in process once he showed up. He gave them another real ball-handler and someone who can actually make defenses pay if they load up too much on Kawhi. It’s just enough extra juice to keep things from getting stuck.

Collins is the same idea in a different way. He’s not dominating possessions, but he’s efficient, he spaces it, and he makes you think twice about helping too aggressively. That matters a lot against a team like Golden State that wants to swarm and rotate.

And then there’s Dunn, who’s the kind of guy that doesn’t show up in the headline but can absolutely swing a game like this. He just makes everything harder.

Against Steph, that’s like gold.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com.

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