Andrew Bogut did his job, but Golden State's `Splash Brothers' Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson had an off-target night as they fell to the Memphis Grizzlies in just their third home loss of the season.
The Grizzlies' 97-90 victory on Tuesday evens the best-of-seven NBA Western Conference semi-final series 1-1 with game three in Memphis on Saturday.
"They deserved this win," Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said.
"They kicked our butts."
The Warriors amassed the best regular season record in the NBA with 67 wins and just 15 losses and had not suffered a defeat at Oracle Arena since January.
The difference was Grizzlies guard Mike Conley who sat out game one after surgery on three fractures around his left eye.
The Warriors also were not helped by the cold shooting from recently-named NBA Most Valuable Player Curry and sidekick Thompson.
Conley, wearing a mask and his eye still swollen and red, was brilliant, controlling the tempo of the game and scoring 22 points from 8-12 shooting in 27 minutes on the court.
Conley was inadvertently elbowed in the face 10 days ago during the first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers.
"You never have an expectation from my position he would go out and be who he was two weeks ago right away," Memphis coach Dave Joerger, praising Conley, said.
The Warriors' Australian centre Bogut had eight points, 12 rebounds and battled with Memphis big men Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph.
Curry and Thompson, usually deadly, connected with just three of 17 three-point attempts and finished with 19 and 13 points respectively.
Thompson was particularly shaky, shooting just 6-15 from the field, he even missed an easy dunk on the back of a Bogut pass.
"We did a good job chasing them around and making things tough for them," Joerger said.
The loss came after a pre-game ceremony where Curry was presented with his MVP trophy in front of the home crowd.
The series moves to Memphis on Saturday.
In the Eastern Conference, the Atlanta Hawks also evened their series 1-1 with the Washington Wizards with a 106-90 victory on their home court.
Just before tip-off the Wizards made the surprise announcement their All-Star guard John Wall was out with an injured left hand.
Top-seeded Atlanta were shocked with a 104-98 loss in game one and were expected to take advantage of Wall's absence, but instead struggled to break away from the Wizards until the fourth quarter.
Atlanta forward DeMarre Carroll had a game high 22 points, Kyle Korver had 12 points from 4-11 three-point shooting while Wall's back-up Ramon Sessions had 21 points.
Game three will be played in Washington DC on Saturday.
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