BARCLAYS CENTER, BROOKLYN, NY — Two nights after defeating Utah at home, the Golden State Warriors (25-4) headed out to the East Coast for quick three-game road trip, beginning with the Brooklyn Nets (7-20).
The Warriors were without Draymond Green, who flew back to the Bay Area the night before to attend to the birth of his son, and Damian Jones, who is on assignment with D-League Santa Cruz.
The Nets were without Isaiah Whitehead (foot) and Chris McCullough (inactive).
Q1: The Brook Lopez Show
Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant hit a couple early threes, but the Warriors had trouble stopping Brook Lopez and Bojan Bogdanovic.
Lopez his two treys and two jumpers, while Bogdanovic drillled two treys and a reverse layup.
Durant had a nice feed to Looney with a wicked crossover:
[protected-iframe id=”64c9f7e1a2f5a0382419e18b8ad711a6-114320562-10106876″ info=”https://vine.co/v/501dqmbleub/embed/simple” width=”300″ height=”300″ frameborder=”0″]https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.jsWith 8:40 remaining, the Nets kept pace, up 12-8
Looney hit Durant up top for a jumper, but KD later missed a coast-to-coast attack and Sean Kilpatrick cut to the hole and was rewarded by Lopez.
Kerr called timeout with 6:28 to play, with the Warriors down 20-12.
The Warriors made a mini-run with a Durant bucket inside, Zaza Pachulia putting back his own miss, Klay hitting a baseline jumper, Stephen Curry doing a look-away then stepping toward the left baseline for a one-footed fall-away jumper, to tie the game at 20-20.
Both teams traded buckets with Andre Iguodala hitting a long two and Thompson getting a fly-by triple from the corner assisted by Iguodala, but Justin Hamilton hit a three and the Warriors went “tic-tac-toe” to give Curry a three.
With Green out, David West got an extra-early look and got an offensive board fo a miss by Steph, and fed Ian Clark for an easy two, with under 10 seconds to go.
The Nets missed the final try, KD outlet immediately to Curry, who barely missed the buzzer-beater.
Q2: Brook Lopez, Part Deux
The start the second stanza, Durant couldn’t hit anything as he missed from point black as well as a fade-away.
But Hamilton and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson continued to hit buckets and with 9:46 left, Hamlton fed Kilpatrick, leading to a timeout by Kerr with 9:46 remaining as the Nets strolled out to a 43-33 lead.
The rest of the half, the Warriors couldn’t muster anything and another Durant miss led to another Hollis-Jefferson make, giving the Nets a 50-39 lead as Kerr took another timeout with 6:58 remaining.
Out of the timeout, a Klay cut assisted by KD, then two putbacks and another bucket by Pachulia would be the only sparks the Warriors would get, as Lopez struck again with another trey, a trip to the foul line, and two more field gaos.
With 2:52 to play, Kerr took yet another timeout as Brooklyn crept their lead out to 61-47.
But the woes continued after a Steph step-back banker, as Thompson going down the left side was denied by Lopez and Curry missed a three, only to have Iguodala get the rebound and throw a bullet touch pass to Anderson Varejao, who wasn’t ready for it.
With 2.6 seconds left, Lopez drew another foul, this time on Steph, and after the two throws, the Nets took an improbable 65-49 lead into halftime.
Lopez led all scorers with 23 points on 7-for-12 field and 3-for-7 downtown.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @daniela_menezes)
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
