This is a continuation of the first half recap of the Golden State Warriors at the Charlotte Hornets.
THIRD QUARTER — Sluggish-ruggish (turkey) bone
The Warriors haven’t played sluggish in a long time, and if you told a bystander that it was Thanksgiving yesterday (at the Curry family home, no less), they could easily put two-and-two together. Add to that the fact that the Hornets have not won in the last seven tries, and you have a “trap” game of sorts.
Golden State traded buckets with Charlotte for a good duration, but the Warriors were being out-shot and out-rebounded. After a strange double-dribble violation on Stephen Curry where it seemed like the only thing he could’ve been guilty on was palming before passing it off right-handed and behind-the-back, Gerald Henderson soared for an easy two on an assist by Lance Stephenson.
That made it 72-63, Charlotte, with 6:22 to go in the third quarter. The Hornets were shooting 54%.
The Warriors seemed sluggish and without energy. Draymond Green missed an airball out of the timeout, Curry got a trey attempt blocked by the diminutive Kemba Walker, and Klay Thompson missed a dunk.
The #SplashBrothers missed consecutive three-point attempts: Curry missed a two-pointer, Green got the offensive rebound, found Curry wide open in the corner, he missed it, Andre Iguodala got the rebound, found Thompson wide open, and Klay missed it.
The three-point woes continued as Curry missed another wide-open trey on a nice drive by Iguodala, then missed a pivot-and-shoot, giving him a horrific 1-for-9 from beyond the arc. The Warriors were a combined 6-for-20 from three-point range. To make matters worse, Golden State had as many free throws (six) as Hornets big man Cody Zeller had by himself.
But then Marreese Speights came back into the game late in the quarter and quietly began to turn the game around for the Dubs. After making a jumper, he took away a Walker dribble drive and the Warriors reaped the benefits with a Harrison Barnes strong lefty drive to cut the deficit to 80-74 heading into the fourth quarter.
FOURTH QUARTER — Speights!
Speights was magnificent (again) in bringing back the Warriors to an 86-86 tie with 6:16 to go in the game:
- Two jumpers and a put-back to start the quarter, making it 84-80 with 9:51 to play.
- Jump-stop bankshot.
- Jumper via assist Thompson.
- Up-and-under after Green got a steal and delivered to Iguodala leading the fast break.
- Reverse layup after passing up the jumper, passing to Iguodala, who passed it back as Speights cut to the rim.
- Curry behind-the-back bounce pass from the left elbow to Speights on the right, jumper good.
That represented the first 16 points of the fourth quarter for the Warriors. After all of that, Thompson got an early three-pointer after Green corraled a Brian Roberts missed trey, making it 93-88, Golden State, with 4:30 to play.
Klay then got a steal and delivered a perfect forward bounce pass to a streaking Curry, who might have gotten fouled as he made a reverse layup on the ensuing fastbreak.
Iguodala then played tremendous team defense, doubling Al Jefferson twice on one sequence, finally getting the defensive rebound, and outletting it to a leaking Curry who dunked it to take a stranglehold on the game, 97-90, with 2:29 left.
The Hornets gave the Warriors mini-scares three times, when Stephenson made an and-one at the rim against Green to cut the Warriors lead to four right after that. But by then, Charlotte had to foul. Curry made a bad turnover getting caught 90 feet away from the basket, expecting a foul but not getting it, and having the ball go out of bounds. It was 104-99 with just 16 seconds remaining.
With 7.5 seconds remaining, Zeller got fouled at the rim by Speights. Zeller missed both, but got his own rebound as Green had to contend with the bigger Jefferson, and made the layup to add some suspense to the game, 104-101 with 5 seconds to play.
Curry made all of his foul shots down the stretch, including the ones with 4.1 to play after the Zeller bucket, and the Warriors wrapped up their eighth straight win with a 106-101 final score.
Speights led all scorers with 27 points on 12-for-20 from the field and 5 rebounds. Despite his struggles, Curry still tallied 26 points, but on 9-for-20 shooting, 1-for-10 from beyond the arc, with 4 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 blocked shots. He also made all seven of his free throws and committed 4 turnovers.
Thompson added 17 points on 7-for-22 from the field, 3-for-5 from downtown, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals. Only nine Warriors played, as head coach Steve Kerr opted not to play Leandro Barbosa, who has been recovering from a sprained knee. Brandon Rush was largely ineffective in Barbosa’s absence, with just 5 points on 2-for-8 shooting, 1-for-4 from three-point-land.
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