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Starting in 2013 when the Warriors burst onto the scene with that first-round upset of the third-seeded Denver Nuggets, the people have been wanting a Clippers-Warriors healthy playoff series in the worst way.

We still haven't gotten it.

In 2014 we got a terrific first-round series between the two, a seven-gamer that went down to the wire, but the whole thing was tainted by the Donald Sterling fiasco and the absence of Andrew Bogut. We would've gotten another great one in the 2015 conference finals had the Clippers not coughed up a 3-1 lead to the Houston Rockets after leading by 19 in the second half of Game 6.

Man, that would've been some kind of series, too. The Warriors weren't the Warriors yet. They had become the better team, a 67-win team to be exact, but the Clippers still sort of felt like the big brother in that matchup, at least to me. I feel like that series would've been a tossup, the one shot L.A. might've had to at least marginally disrupt Golden State's inevitable rise to Western and NBA supremacy.

It didn't happen, and since then there has been no debate as to who the better team is -- certainly not last season, and again not this season, though it is ironic that in the year that we have finally started to accept the Clippers as the little team rather than the team with championship expectations, they have, in many ways, looked more capable than ever of a real title run.

Specifically, the Clippers probably match up with the Warriors as well as anyone in the league, maybe better. Of course, the Warriors match up with everyone on their worst night. Are these two legit rivals? I still like to think so. The NBA is more fun when these two are both really good and really irked with one another. If nothing else, I hope Wednesday's game re-establishes, or at least reconfirms, the classic Warriors-Clippers grudge match that was as contentious as it was competitive before Golden State went and separated itself.

Here are four things to watch Wednesday night:

1. Klay's encore

Where else can we start? Klay Thompson's 60-point, 29-minute performance Monday night is absolutely one of the greatest scoring games in NBA history. Not the best shooting games, the best scoring games, period. If you're putting up a point a minute, you're killing people. If you're putting up two points a minute? Forget about it. This is right there with Kobe's 81, maybe even Wilt's 100.

I mean, forget that Thompson only needed 33 shots to get 60.

He only touched the ball 46 times!

Which brings us to Wednesday night. Can Klay possibly live up to that showing? No chance. But the question is: Will he remain scorching hot? He has a history of being somewhat streaky. He was 3-for-28 on 3-pointers to start the season. If he's hot, the Warriors are almost impossible to beat. J.J. Redick will be checking him for the most part. Redick is an under-talked-about defender. He'll have his hands full in this one.

2. Big game for Clippers

You see what I did there? Indeed, this is a big game for L.A. in the sense that we want to see if we can trust this exciting start to the season, and it's against the Warriors on national television. But also for the Clips, this game is, in fact, all about the bigs.

Listen, when it comes to the Warriors and their championship expectations, you can kind of throw out all their total numbers. Yes, right now they're the best offensive team in history on paper. But most of those numbers are being piled up against teams that flat-out don't matter. We only need to measure Golden State against three teams: the Cavs, Spurs and Clippers. No other team can beat them, assuming health, in a seven-game series.

We haven't seen the Warriors against the Cavs yet, but we can assume that would be another basketball war if they met in the Finals. But we did see the Spurs demolish them on opening night, and the Clippers present some of the same problems San Antonio did with their size and athleticism.

They present even more of a problem in this area. LaMarcus Aldridge is great and Pau Gasol is still pretty good, maybe, but Blake Griffin is a legit MVP candidate and DeAndre Jordan isn't far behind. If the Warriors have shown any weakness this season, it has been on the defensive end in terms of traditional rim protection (they get a lot of blocks from the weak side and from behind, but lack that presence in the middle that deters people from attacking in the first place) and rebounding.

The Clippers are seventh in rebound percentage and the Warriors are 15th, but again, that's deceiving in that Golden State is grabbing a lot of those boards against teams that don't present the offensive rebounding mismatches that the Clippers do. To be fair, L.A. hasn't been a good offensive rebounding team this season, but with Jordan alone it should be able to exploit this to some degree Wednesday night.

At least, it better.

Stephen Curry usually has his hands full when Chris Paul is defending. USATSI

3. Defending Stephen Curry

The Clippers have the best defense in the league right now, and traditionally, while Curry has typically managed to get his numbers and play his game when it's all said and done, L.A. has been known to make life difficult on him. This is, in part, because nobody dogs him like Chris Paul, not even Patrick Beverley.

But the thing the Clippers do that really makes life difficult on Curry is the way they defend the pick and roll. For starters, they pick him up as high as anyone. There are times a double is coming the minute he crosses half court, and off the pick and roll, they are as effective as anyone against Curry. Mainly, they are able to hedge really high because Griffin and Jordan are athletic enough to not let Curry turn the corner, and long enough to disrupt that one-handed swing pass he likes to make off the dribble. They do this all 35 feet from the basket. And it has worked, relatively speaking.

Problem is, Kevin Durant presents a whole new issue. It was punishing enough to defend Curry that aggressively, that far out, when it was just Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes spacing the floor. With Durant, can you really double Curry off the pick and roll that aggressively? Can you just let Draymond Green play 4 on 3 with Durant and Klay spaced to each side? Seems like a death trap.

Then again, so does letting Curry come clean off a high pick to either turn the corner and start heading downhill or pull up for 3. And what about when the Warriors start going to a Durant-Curry pick and roll rather than using Green? What then? Can you seriously switch and leave Paul on Durant? You might have to.

The Clippers have the size and athleticism to at least makes these things difficult for the Warriors, but of course, that is easier said than done.

4. Draymond vs. Blake

In all the Draymond Green new-age power forward hoopla, Blake Griffin has sort of gotten lost. So let's set the record straight: Griffin is a beast. He's averaging 23 points and just under 10 boards per 36 minutes. He's shooting 50 percent from the field. He's getting to the line eight times a night (which I still think could improve).

But beyond the numbers, Griffin has, over the past few years (when he hasn't been breaking his hand on the equipment manager's face), settled into a beautifully well-rounded player. Legit MVP level, if on the fringe. He's starting to look a lot like Karl Malone (seriously) with his pick-and-pop game, and this year it's hard not to notice how under control he looks.

I can only imagine how much all the Draymond love irks Griffin. It always gets a little personal when these two get together, even if Griffin has gotten better at not showing it. You know Griffin thinks he's getting undervalued in comparison to Green, and who can blame him? Right now, if you were starting a team, and you have one pick between Draymond and Griffin, is it a slam dunk which one you would take?

I would take Green, I think -- especially if he's surrounded by the best offensive team ever.

But you would have to consider Griffin. Strongly.