Why Warriors’ Zubac assignment is matchup to watch vs. Clippers

When the Warriors lost their home opener to the Los Angeles Clippers last month, they weren’t undone by 10-time All-Star James Harden or six-time All-Star Kawhi Leonard. They were clobbered by someone who might never reach All-Star status.

Ivica Zubac, the biggest man on LA’s roster, owned the Warriors and they haven’t forgotten. He was pushed closer to the top of Golden State’s scouting report as the teams meet Monday night at Intuit Dome in Inglewood.

The 7-foot, 240-pound center scored 23 points, tying Harden for a team high, and pulled 18 rebounds. Once Zubac scored five of LA’s first seven points in the second quarter, Golden State never led again.

“Every time they needed a bucket,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after the Oct. 27 game at Chase Center, “they seemed to get one from him.”

The Warriors typically would come after Zubac with their trio of big men: Trayce Jackson-Davis, Draymond Green and Kevon Looney. Looney fared the best in the previous game, with 10 points and 11 rebounds in 20 minutes, but was ruled out Monday afternoon with an illness.

That leaves TJD, who struggled last time, and Green, who did not see much of Zubac but knows his game. The task is now tougher, as Zubac has become a force, ranking among the top five scoring centers (15.9 ppg) and fifth among all players in rebounding (12.1 points per game).

Kerr undoubtedly will remind his team not to reach when defending Harden and to be wary of Norman Powell, a notorious streak shooter who has punished the Warriors in the past.

But Zubac, on that night, was the mountain they could not scale. He played 37 minutes and was the central reason the Warriors were outscored 58-38 in the paint; that statistic is pertinent because that’s 10 more than LA’s per-game average and 10 fewer than Golden State’s.

No less impressive is that Zubac managed such production after playing 39 minutes the previous night in high-altitude Denver.

“When we get him the ball in the paint, when we get to his sweet spot, he’s usually money,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said on Oct. 27. “I hate to see him play that many minutes on the back-to-back, but we needed every second of it.”

That didn’t help the Warriors last time, but this is a second chance under similar conditions. Having beaten Utah on Sunday in LA, the Clippers once again are on the second night of a back-to-back set.