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 got beat up 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 it. He was pushed closer to the top of Golden State’s scouting report when the teams met Monday night at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood.

The 6-foot, 240-pound center scored 23 points, tying Harden for a team high, and pulled down 18 rebounds. After 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 would typically come after Zubac with their trio of big men: Trayce Jackson-Davis, Draymond Green and Kevon Looney. Looney did best in the previous game, with 10 points and 11 rebounds in 20 minutes, but was ruled out due to illness on Monday afternoon.

That leaves TJD, who struggled last time, and Green, who hasn’t seen much of Zubac but knows his game. The task is more difficult now, 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 will no doubt remind his team not to overreach when defending Harden and to be wary of Norman Powell, a notorious streak shooter who has punished the Warriors in the past.

But Zubac was the mountain they couldn’t climb that night. He played 37 minutes and was the main reason the Warriors were outscored 58-38 in the paint; that stat is relevant because that’s 10 more than LA’s per-game average and 10 less than Golden State’s.

No less impressive is that Zubac was able to pull off such a production after playing 39 minutes the night before in upstate Denver.

“If we get him the ball in the paint, if we get to his sweet spot, he’s usually money,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said on Oct. 27. back, but we needed every second of it.”

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

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