ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — The Golden State Warriors closed out their first-half explosion on the Charlotte Hornets. Oh, and it was Slate Night.
THIRD QUARTER
Here were some highlights from the third quarter:
- First play of the second half had the Warriors running their system. Bogut got a slam dunk on a bounce pass from Stephen Curry.
- Curry played some great one-on-one defense on Kemba Walker.
- Klay Thompson seemed to get by Lance Stephenson with relative ease. He also seemed to be taking larger strides to the hole.
- Curry grabbed three more rebounds in the quarter and has been a rebound magnet this year.
- As we tweeted on the #LetsGoWarriorsLive livetweet: “Mo running, Mo dunking…Mo transition, Mo free throws.” Marreese Speights would score 7 points in the quarter and even had a heat-check three-point attempt that missed from the top of the arc.
- One of the “Mo runnings” was a fastbreak led by Andre Iguodala, who gave a brief highstep skip before delivering the pass to Speights.
Speights would score 13 total points in 15 minutes of play off the bench.
At the end of three, the Warriors were up, 96-68, outscoring the Hornets yet again, 29-22, in the quarter. #DubNation started filing out of Oracle.
FOURTH QUARTER
Festus Ezeli got his first action early in the fourth quarter after sitting out the last game against the Brooklyn Nets, in which Speights had another strong performance.
Ezeli did well, getting an and-one banker to go almost right off the bat against Bismack Biyombo.
He later got a putback slam off of a missed jumper by Shaun Livingston.
In other news, Livingston tried a slam dunk but was rejected at the rim by Biyombo, after spinning baseline. The good news was, he tried to slam it. Not bad for a guy who’s been with a bad toe for months.
Justin Holiday got his first burn in a long time, entering at the 9:48 mark for Iguodala, who ended the night with a poor shooting performance at 0-for-4 from the field, but who also collected 4 rebounds and 4 assists.
Brandon Rush and Ognjen Kuzmic also saw some action, with Rush entering the game with about eight minutes to go and Kuzmic with about six minutes to go.
Klay Thompson led all scorers with 21 points on 7-for-13 from the field, 4-for-6 from downtown, 4 rebounds, and 5 assists. Curry collected 19 points on 8-for-15 field goals, 3-for-6 treys, to go along with 5 rebounds and 9 assists. Harrison Barnes had another strong performance with 17 points on 7-for-11 from the field and 3-for-5 from beyond the arc.
Speights came off the bench for 13 points on 4-for-8 shooting, 5-for-5 from the free throw line, and 6 rebounds.
Al Jefferson led the Hornets with 19 points and Stephenson added 16. Brian Roberts added 17 points off the bench for Charlotte.
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