The Golden State Warriors ended the 2017-18 season without Stephen Curry, limping along to win just four of its final 10 games. The San Antonio Spurs can relate. Gregg Popovich coached the Spurs to a 47-35 record as it struggled to play without its superstar Kawhi Leonard. Both Curry and Leonard are expected to be out for the duration of this series, which adds a unique twist to see two teams without their respective leaders. 

The Warriors are still nevertheless 8-point favorites in Game 1 at home, where the Dubs posted a 29-12 mark this season while having gone 58-24 overall, its lowest win total of the last four seasons. Many still expect Golden State to make another Finals appearance this year, but the challenge begins with San Antonio and (arguably?) the league’s best coach Gregg Popovich doing all he can to take down the vaunted Warriors.

Let us take a look at the specific matchups in this series in attempt to discern how it finally all will shake out, beginning with the respective backcourts.

Starting Guards: Quinn Cook and Klay Thompson vs. Dejounte Murray and Patty Mills

Obviously, this backcourt matchup loses a lot of its luster without Steph Curry in the mix, but it also really evens the tables. Quinn Cook is little more than a D-League call up, but he is a very good one at that, and this could be a chance for his NBA career to really take off if he has a good series. He will square off at the 1-spot against Dejounte Murray, who is basically the Spurs’ heir apparent to the declining Tony Parker (who now comes off the bench). Patty Mills is also a point guard, but will start alongside Murray at the 2-spot. 

The Australian can really get cooking (especially as we saw in the Olympics), so keep an eye on Mills to throw some flames for San Antonio. The best player of this quartet of backcourt players is Klay Thompson, who essentially has to play like a superstar in this series with Curry out due to injury. Thompson could be a No. 1 option on a number of NBA teams, however, though, so expect him to do his usual and drop more triples than usual since Curry will not be there with his typical high usage rate and shot attempts. In fact, it is Thompson who gives the Dubs a slight advantage in the backcourt. He can really get cooking and this will be a perfect chance for the son of Mychal Thompson to remind the Association just how good he really is.

Once again, as with the backcourts, this is really a matchup between six players with one supreme standout. That, of course, is former MVP Kevin Durant, who could be in to have the series of his life in helping carry the Warriors without Curry. It will not be all Thompson, obviously. Durant is fully capable of leading the Warriors to victory in this series, but also look for Draymond Green to take charge more offensively to pick up some of the slack. 
