The Golden State Warriors claimed an easy victory over the Portland Trail Blazers 116-94 at the Oracle Arena in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on Tuesday, leading 1-0 in the series. Stephen Curry shot down the court's highest 36 points and buried nine three-pointers while Klay Thompson scored 26 points. Compared with Golden State's Splash Brothers, Portland's Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum only scored 19 and 17 points respectively, failing to meet the pregame expectations on them.

Like CGTN had expected, Golden State put Andrew Bogut in their starting lineup, so they had big enough size to match Portland's Enes Kanter in the paint, though Bogut played in total eight minutes on the court. As for Lillard and McCollum, Golden State had different plans. They kept double-teaming Lillard in screenplays to force the ball out of his hands. Thanks to his small size (shorter than 1.91 meters), Lillard can neither shoot nor penetrate facing the combined defense of two players that are both bigger than him. As a result, Lillard only tried 12 shots, delivered six assists but committed seven turnovers.

The Warriors also double-teamed McCollum from time to time but not as aggressively as they did to Lillard. In the first half, they had Curry defend McCollum one on one but help defense would immediately arrive when McCollum entered the 3-pt line. The Warriors could allow McCollum to drive towards the rim but never wanted him to dribble the ball in his sweet spot, which is one or two steps around the free throw line. As a result, McCollum had more shots than Lillard (19), but he only made seven of them.

The reason why Golden State were willing to focus most of their defense on Lillard and McCollum was that they were willing to bet that Portland's other players could not punish them. The truth was they were right. Of Portland's other three starting players, Al-Farouq Aminu only got three points; Kanter grabbed 16 rebounds, but he only shot nine times to get 10 points; Maurice Harkless scored 17 points, but he only made one three-pointer, which could not hurt Golden State. Besides, the three together only delivered six assists, meaning that the ball was not in proper motion in their hands.

Rodney Hood made decent contributions off the bench by claiming 17 points, but when the whole team were underperforming in offense, his contributions were a drop in the bucket at best. As for Zach Collins and Seth Curry, their roles in the game could be ignored because they did not do much.

The Trail Blazers lost Game 1 for two major reasons. First, they did a terrible job defending Curry and Thompson. Unlike the Warriors who were determined to double-team the opponent's most powerful weapon, the Trail Blazers watched the defenders of Curry and Thompson blocked by screens while the Splash Bothers gradually warmed up with their hands.

Of course, Portland's choice-making in defense had a lot to do with their starting center Kanter who was also the team's second main reason for the loss. Kanter is never a good defender, and no one asked him for much in that area. The problem was, he ceased to be a threat even in the offense. It remained unclear whether it's for his shoulder injury or for refraining from food and drinks before sunset because of Ramadan, Kanter lacked strength under the rim. He did not seem to have any advantage in the physical competitions against Kevon Looney and Draymond Green.

However, coach Terry Stotts had to continue to use Kanter because Collins exposed his weakness in Tuesday's game: fear of physical play. Though he is athletic and good at blocking, Collins is not strong enough to work in the paint, especially against Green.

One thing that seemed abnormal about Game 1 was that both teams applied long rotations. Before the game entered garbage time, Portland sent in a total of nine players to the court – Evan Turner got the least amount of time, and it was still 16 minutes. As for the Warriors, they put 10 players in their rotation-even Quinn Cook, Jordan Bell and Alfonzo McKinnie played over 10 minutes. This could be good news for Golden State because Curry and Thompson won't have to be overburdened before DeMarcus Cousins and Kevin Durant come back.