But they almost did just that until self-destructing in the closing seconds and ultimately falling in overtime, 107-99, in Oakland on Saturday night.
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Curry scored 34 points, 21 of them coming in the second half.
But Brooklyn led by Jack, just kept fighting, setting up a wild finish with the two teams trading the lead six times in the final three minutes before Thaddeus Young’s two free throws with 9.9 seconds left gave Brooklyn a 97-94 lead. Curry started to heat up in the second quarter and the Warriors’ defense held the Nets to just 18 points. At the break the score was 54-52.
That was the last best chance the Nets would get. The Raptor point guard set a season high, connecting for six three-pointers and finishing with 22 points, seven assists and four steals, a touch better than his consistent season averages through the Raptors up-and-down start. Andrew Bogut had 10 points and 18 rebounds. Jack went a combined 1-8 from the field in the final quarter and overtime against the Curry/Livingston/Iguodala trio. “If they make a shot over our hand, you shake that hand and go the other way but we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot defensively and make mistakes defensively and not be fundamentally sound”. Ricky Rubio missed his second straight game with a strained left hamstring.
Brooklyn, which completed its road trip 1-3, had two shots at a win, but point guard Jarrett Jack misfired on an 18-footer before Lopez’s miss at the horn.
Of his 66 total assists, 10 have come to Festus Ezeli, usually by drawing the defense in and finding the Warriors’ promising big man for easy alley-oops and dunks.
They are back Tuesday, tipoff 10:30 p.m., against a very similar Warriors team in terms of personnel but the scary part is this version is better still. Thompson joined Curry as the only players in franchise history with 800 career 3-pointers.
The Raptors hit something of a cold streak, but they have been back on track in their past two following a three game losing streak.
Cleveland still leads the East with an 8-2 record and Kyrie Irving has not even made his debut yet. Curry is an awesome, historic talent, but like every other great player before him, his elevation to this level is allowed by the kind of talent he has around him, even if they aren’t as heralded. They are already thinking about June.
The Rockets got surprised by a gutsy Mavericks team that came ready to play despite missing Wesley Matthews, Chandler Parsons and Dirk Nowitzki. The loss in itself is bad enough, as it puts Houston at 4-6 for the season in the competitive Western Conference, but it also continued a worrying trend: The Rockets can’t win when Harden Harden struggles. When that happens, Dray has learned exactly what he can get with the resulting 4-on-3…In 2015-16, there’s a different type of interior player that has usurped the stretch 4 as an offensive trump card, and Green is its prototype.
“20 point win or bust!”
One thing this team does have going for it is a willingness to play hard.
The Clippers needed a win against the Pistons. And yet, the most remarkable thing about these 11-0 Warriors is that the roster is so lethal from so many directions. Lowry’s going to need an terrible lot of help. They also possess a +48 point differential in the third, the highest of any quarter.
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Sometime during the first half of the Golden State Warriors’ game on Saturday night, the guy sitting a couple seats over leaned over me and yelled over the noise of the arena, “This is the same team that just lost to the Kings?!”
