Dallas Mavericks’ David Lee (42) drives to the basket over Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry, left, and Draymond Green during the first half of an NBA basketball game Friday, March 25, 2016, in Oakland, Calif.
Advertisement
The Warriors improved to 64-7 to continue leading the Western Conference and the entire National Basketball Association and are still on track of breaking the 72-10 record of the ’95-’96 Chicago Bulls squad. Thompson hit nine 3-pointers to give him a career-high 246 on the season.
It came on a night they actually attempted two more 3-pointers than 2-pointers, not that they have any problem with that.
“David helped us win that championship”, coach Steve Kerr said. The under has cashed in four of the Warriors’ last five games overall and is also 8-3 in the Mavericks’ last 11 games versus Pacific opponents.
Mavericks: F Dirk Nowitzki (rest), G Deron Williams (abdominal strain) and F Jeremy Evans (R shoulder surgery) are listed as out.
“He’s doing a lot of lateral stuff on the court”, Kerr said.
“That’s pretty sweet”, Thompson said.
That turned out to be more of a humorous blip, especially when contrasted against Curry’s highlight-reel 3 from deep just a few minutes later. “We were jumping on pump fakes”.
Mavericks update: Mavs are the pits right now – eight losses in their last 10 games, though they are 2-3 in their last five. “We can’t do that if we want to play in May and June”.
This was the first trip back to Oracle Arena since the NBA Finals a year ago for Lee, who was traded to the Boston Celtics in the offseason and recently joined the Mavericks. Late in the second quarter, he found himself all alone behind the 3-point line.
So, at Friday night’s game between the Warriors and Mavericks, Curry presented Lee with his long-awaited ring.
The Warriors knocked down 21 3-pointers, including six in the first six-plus minutes of action.
Despite an 18-point lead in the second half, the Warriors saw their lead trimmed to just three in the final four minutes.
Curry made up for that blunder when he hit a 33-footer punctuated by a shimmy dance just before the halftime buzzer to give Golden State a 72-58 lead at the break.
The Warriors opened up an 18-point lead in the third quarter before Dallas fought back to get the deficit into single digits early in the fourth three times. Wesley Matthews paced a balance Dallas attack with 26 points, which included six 3-pointers. That’s the best I’ve seen Harrison play in a while. Asked to describe Lee’s contribution to the Warriors from afar, Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle observed: “He was one of the transition guys between the down years and the championship”.
Advertisement
During the game, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tweeted criticism of one of the game officials.
