CSN Bay Area

OAKLAND -– The Oklahoma City Thunder are coming to Oracle Arena on Monday night. And they're bringing Kevin Durant.

Uh-oh.

The Warriors only hope Durant doesn't pick up where he left off when the teams met Dec. 18 in Oakland. He poured in 30 points, on 10-of-13 shooting, in 19 first-half minutes before leaving shortly before halftime with a sprained ankle.

Durant in that game became the first player since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976 to score 30 points in less than 20 minutes.

"He came out firing -– and they were tough shots,” Draymond Green recalled. "They were contested 3s, contested 2s. He had it going.

"You never want to see a guy get hurt. It's tough. But if he didn't get hurt, I still wonder how many he was going for that night. We'll never know. But I still wonder how many he was going for. And where were we going to be?"

Durant missed OKC's next six games, only to come back and score 78 points in the last two -– with 61 percent shooting from the field (25-of-41) and 55.6 percent from 3-point distance (10-of-18).

This game represents a second chance for the Warriors. Will it matter?

Durant is one of the five toughest covers in NBA history, right up there with Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James but ahead of Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. With the length of the average center, the reigning MVP has a more comprehensive offensive skill set than anyone. Ever.

"First all he's 6-11," said Green, the Warriors' best frontcourt defender. "He dribbles the ball like a point guard, shoots the ball like a two guard, moves and jumps like a pure athlete, and he can post up.

"With all of that, you're just at a disadvantage. Regardless of how good a defender you are, you're at a disadvantage."

The Warriors, as they did Dec. 18, will throw a variety of defenders at Durant. He'll see a lot of Green, plenty of Harrison Barnes and, rest assured, some Andre Iguodala.

"You've got a lot of talented guys in the league, but obviously, he's a little bit more talented than the rest," Iguodala said of Durant. "So it's a little extra incentive to go out there and make something happen to where he's not having big games. Because everybody remembers the big games he has, so you don't want it to be against you."

No Warriors defender had a chance in the game last month –- until Durant was confined to the locker room in the second half.