OAKLAND, Calif. -- While Wednesday night looked to be an intriguing confrontation with Golden State's past, furnished with a schmaltzy tribute montage for 2015 championship alumni Andrew Bogut and Harrison Barnes, the game quickly disintegrated. The action got away from the Dallas Mavericks quickly, which led to an eventual 116-95 victory for the Warriors. The experience might have felt uneventful but it resulted in the unprecedented: Golden State became the first team to have four players each hit four 3-pointers in a game (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green).
Before you could pause to consider whether the Warriors were indeed correct in ditching parts of their core for Durant, the game got ragged. Since Dallas was so talent-bereft, lacking Bogut and Dirk Nowitzki on Wednesday, it was difficult for the Mavericks to match Golden State's firepower. It was hard to consider whether Golden State's old whole was better than the sum of its parts with the Mavs in pieces like this.
So the real Warriors reunion was the return of Thompson, an All-Star who was far off his mark to begin this season. He was incandescent in the first quarter, starting off 7-of-7 for 18 points before finally missing a long 3-pointer (Thompson finished with 20 points on 13 shots). The outburst suggested that Thompson's previous struggles were just a matter of missing, and that there are more makes on the horizon.
“Nobody’s really worried about Klay and him shooting the ball," Curry said of Thompson’s breakout. "That’s what he does. He wakes up and shoots the ball.”
Thompson was not alone Wednesday. The Warriors were firing at full blast, claiming 14 3-pointers in the first half, pushing the lead to 33. The show's apex came when Stephen Curry unleashed a 31-footer right in brother Seth Curry's face.
Then, as sometimes happens, the game turned for a moment on Steph Curry's ankle. He tweaked it at the start of the third quarter while guarding his brother and trundled off to the locker room.
Golden State's energy ebbed and the Mavericks chipped away at the lead, closing the gap to 13 points. The Warriors were less reunited with Barnes than introduced to him, as he continues to look like a different player than the one who played in Oakland. Barnes started off missing contested shots out of isolation but found a groove in the second half, wherein he dropped 15 points (he finished with 25 points and eight rebounds).
It was an odd sight to see the once-peripheral performer hitting shots off plays called specifically for him. “I'm proud of him, the way he's blossoming in this go-to role,” Thompson said of his former teammate. “He's willing to do whatever his team needs him to do. That's why he got paid what he did, because he's got so much potential. He's a max guy. He's playing great this year and I expect him to sustain throughout the year. He's really talented.”
That run of success was short-lived for the Mavericks though, ended in large part by Steph Curry's return to action. In 10 second-half minutes, the two-time MVP shot 5-of-6 for 14 points (finishing with 24 points on 12 shots). Tweaked ankle or not, he showed flashes of last season's -- and last game's -- league-dominating form. As Durant summarized the night, “Klay got his start and Steph picked us up there in the third when we weren’t as good energy-wise as we should have been. We kind of cruised from there. When you make shots it makes everything better.”
Again, Durant delivered a calmly efficient performance (28 points on 16 shots, 10 boards). His efficiency has been something beyond a habit with this squad. More notable might have been Green's hitting four 3-pointers, as many as he'd knocked down this season heading into Wednesday. Rookie Patrick McCaw and 20-year-old Kevon Looney also contributed in spot minutes.
Not every night will come against competition so deprived, but this game bodes better than most. Every All-Star performed well and the youngsters helped. The Warriors haven't been dominant from the start, but they might be starting to find their way.