Having suffered only their second defeat of the season on Wednesday when Curry missed his first game due to a lower leg injury, the Warriors found just enough to compensate for the loss of the reigning league MVP and edged the Rockets.
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An MRI exam of Curry’s sore leg revealed no structural damage. Golden State opted to be cautious and hold him out.
Interim head coach Luke Walton laughed as he said he hadn’t thought about how the Rockets game could be his last sitting in the lead chair for the Warriors.
Dirk Nowitzki scored 18 points and six Mavericks players reached double figures.
Best at the 2: Klay Thompson took some heat in December for saying that he believed he is the league’s top shooting guard. He is 17 of 22 from 3-point range in those games after going 5 of 7 against the Warriors. “Kobe!” in the final minute (see full recap). Iguodala had 20 points.
The Mavericks went up by 30 at 83-53 on a 3-pointer by Wesley Matthews, who had 13 points. Meyers Leonard added 17 points, and Allen Crabbe chipped in 15 points.
Philadelphia led by as much as 12 in the second half and was up, 95-86, early in the fourth before Sacramento made a late push.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – J.J. Reddick scored 26 points and Los Angeles made 15 3-pointers in a wire-to-wire victory over Charlotte. Harden did a pretty solid job, scoring 30 points on 19 shots. Thompson scored five points in that span and Iguodala added a 3-pointer before James Michael McAdoo capped it with a dunk following a turnover by Ty Lawson.
At the moment, the Warriors are at 29-2 and leading the way in the Pacific Division. Bojan Bogdanovic added 20 points. But they surrendered 46 points the rest of the way to fall to 16-18 for the season, 7th place in the Western Conference and 15 games behind the Warriors.
The Suns lost their six straight game.
Jimmy Butler’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds remaining in overtime saw the Chicago Bulls edge the Indiana Pacers 102-100.
Butler scored 28 points and Aaron Brooks had 29 points to help Chicago win its third in four games.
Entering Thursday’s matchup at the Houston Rockets as underdogs for the first time all season, the defending champs closed out 2015 by proving that they have plenty of ability even without Curry and three other rotation players in the lineup. Thompson didn’t have any assists but added seven rebounds. It was the 10th time this season Rubio reached double-digit assists.
Isaiah Thomas scored 24 points for Boston, who cut an 11-point deficit to two shortly before Bryant’s three-pointer.
With Curry out and Thompson and Green struggling, the Warriors were led by a rather unexpected source of points – journeyman guard Ian Clark, who had a career-best 21 points off the bench.
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Green says he merely stepped up and made plays, and that they talked about trying to slow down the game and work on executing their offense. Forward Tobias Harris had 12 points and eight rebounds.
