LOS ANGELES -- For the first time all season, Kevin Durant was off. Stephen Curry couldn't hit anything from deep. After scoring 60 points in three quarters Monday, Klay Thompson started Wednesday's game 0-of-4. This had the makings of an upset, in theory.

Instead, the Golden State Warriors routed the Los Angeles Clippers 115-98 in another faceoff that failed to validate the billing of "rivalry." It was another Warriors-Clippers game, another hyped drumroll leading to nothing, another crescendo squeezed into quiet. The Clippers are excellent, just not so much against the Steve Kerr-era Warriors, against whom they've gone 1-8.

The game quickly turned into an uphill endeavor for the Clippers. The Warriors' offensive machine was humming, even if it was threshing in a different direction than usual. Golden State carved up Los Angeles without even punishing the Clippers from long range.

As Draymond Green said after the game, "Honestly, I don't even think we played well offensively tonight." If the Warriors had some better luck from distance (they shot 7-of-30 from range), this blowout might have been far worse for Los Angeles.

The Clippers held the Warriors to 2-of-9 shooting on 3-pointers in the first quarter, but still allowed Golden State to claim 37 points in the stanza. Off-ball cuts to the paint punished Los Angeles, especially those coming from Curry (12 of his 15 first-half points came from cuts to the restricted area). The Clippers typically sell out to run the sharp-shooting Warriors off the line, a strategy that has paid dividends at times but certainly bit them Wednesday night. The middle was open, vulnerable and quickly perforated.

For a few moments, the Clippers, and the game, had some life. In the second quarter, Jamal Crawford provided the jolt to a Clippers squad that had previously looked lifeless. Crawford bailed out the Clippers with two deep 3-pointers, helping to fuel a comeback that shrunk a 20-point lead to seven.

Green & Co. kept that run at bay. Green delivered a vicious dunk, fed by a savvy Thompson pass, followed up by a corner 3 hit to push the lead back up. Green was brilliant all around, going 8-of-10 for 22 points to augment a typically strong defensive effort. Curry had an excellent defensive game as well, racking up a career-high-tying seven steals, some helped along by Green’s defensive pressure. As Curry said after the game, perhaps a bit too modestly, “I was just in the right place and the right time a couple of times."

This was a game where the Warriors had more than enough help to survive Curry going 0-of-8 from deep and Durant shooting 5-of-17 overall. As Durant himself summarized, “When our offense wasn't working, shots weren't falling, we defended at a high level. We made them play one-on-one, made them shoot tough shots all night.” It might be a make-or-miss league, as the cliché goes, but the Warriors more than compensated for missed jumpers by playing the right way on both ends. The smart ball movement, hard cuts and rugged defense comprised an intense effort that made victory appear, superficially, easy.

Old hand Andre Iguodala was particularly bouncy, dunking thrice, once with a double pump, once with a tomahawk. After the latter, the 32-year-old traipsed down the floor with an expression of amusement, surprised at his capabilities.

That expression and gesticulation might as well have summed up Golden State's evening in Los Angeles. It shouldn't be this easy, against this level of competition. The years should have dulled some of their edge on the Clippers. But, so long as the Warriors continue to apply this level of force and focus to their Pacific Division foe, there will be more happy shrugs on the horizon.