HALFTIME RECAP WITH HIGHLIGHTS: Durant Helps Mask Early Warriors Turnovers, Lead Cleveland Cavaliers 55-52

QUICKEN LOANS ARENA, CLEVELAND, OH — Two nights after defeating the Pistons in Detroit, the Golden State Warriors (27-4) finished up their mini-roadtrip with a Christmas Game visit to the Cleveland Cavaliers (22-6).

The Warriors were fully healthy and had James McAdoo and Damian Jones on the inactive list.

The Cavs were without J.R. Smith (right thumb fracture) and Chris Andersen (right knee ACL tear).

Q1: KD Posterizes, But Too Many Turnovers

The Warriors got off to a jittery start, committing 4 turnovers in the first 5 minutes, many of them leading to run-out layups by the Cavs.

Perhaps even worse, Draymond Green committed an early foul from behind on Kevin Love. The referees decided to call it tight out of the gate, as it was a 50-50 call. Green wasn’t happy about it, as he was quite pumped for the game, obviously.

Yet just three or four sequences later, on a drive by DeAndre Liggins, Draymond put his hands up but may have had incident body contact on the lean, and he got whistled for his second personal foul:

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Predictably, Green got even angrier and got whistled for a technical while yelling and swing his arm walking to the bench, knowing he had to sit down with the early foul trouble. He even did that some more from the bench and Golden State’s big men had to try and calm him down. Green easily could have been ejected at that point, but perhaps he knew the refs wouldn’t go that far on national TV.

The Warriors easily could have had more turnovers than those four, as at least two of Stephen Curry’s passes were deflected out of bounds, but remained in Golden State’s possession.

Fortunately, the Warriors now have Kevin Durant, and helped get buckets on layups and from the free throw line, plus made a great play on defense defending an attack by Kevin Love as well as slipping Zaza Pachulia a pass down low.

Meanwhile, Curry and Klay Thompson couldn’t hit from outside, but JaVale McGee came in to two-hand slam home a miss from the corner by Thompson:

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On a crazy sequence, Iman Shumpert missed a corner triple attempt, but Klay threw the ball away on a swing pass, right into the hands of LeBron James, who scooped in the fast break layup against the retreating Thompson.

But Durant turned Love into a poster at the other end, only to have Love throw an inbound touchdown pass to James for a dunk as well:

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Durant skied again but got hit by Love for free throws, and the Warriors held a slim 18-14 lead approaching under three minutes.

Closing out the quarter, James went with a pretty behind-the-back dribble to split Andre Iguodala and Ian Clark for another scoop.

Curry managed to draw a foul on James at the arc, although it was only a long two, but then got called for this ridiculous “phantom foul”:

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Jefferson’s free throws closed the Warriors’ gap to 22-18, but both Clark and David West, who got to the line and fed to cutters, did well, and the Warriors beat the buzzer with two Klay cuts leading to free throws and a layup with 0.7 seconds remaining, leading to a 27-25 lead after one:

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Q2: Nice Cuts, Getting Boarded On Though

Klay hit a three assisted by Shaun Livingston to start the second stanza…

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…but Channing Frye got a bucket at the rim on a Kyrie Irving drive, then a triple from the corner on a James attack, and Warriors head coach Steve Kerr called timeout with 9:42 to play to reset the defense.

Out of the timeout, West got an and-one via Iguodala, Frye hit another three from the top, but then Green scored on a cut, assist Iguodala…

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…and after James missed an offensive put-back with Green (who had checked back in) bothering him down low, Thompson hit a three from a mid-post by West…

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…and Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue called a timeout as Golden State moved ahead, 40-32.

Out of the timeout, Irving got two buckets, the second on his own put-back on a missed attack with Draymond defending.

Later, Durant made a nice block on a Richard Jefferson drive and Green cut to the hole, rewarded by Livingston:

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On another wild play, Livingston made a bad pass in the lane in traffic, but after Irving saved the ball, Shumpert got his in-transition dish off deflected by Steph, and KD killed off the sequence with a slam dunk to put the Warriors up, 46-38, as Lue called a twenty-second timeout:

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Closing out the half, Steph finally hit one from distance in transition, over Tristan Thompson, after Irving missed a three and on a swing by Clark, and later drew foul shots to take a 50-40 lead.

But the Cavs fought back, Irving hitting a triple, Love hitting a three up top, James getting two offensive rebounds and drawing a foul on Livingston while surrounded by Durant and Green, and LeBron scoring again at the rim on a Kyrie drive.

Pachulia, however, got a putback of Iguodala’s miss too hard, Irving back-rimmed a jumper in the paint, and KD boarded, then pulled-up from the right arc to give the Warriors a 55-50 lead with 29.4 seconds left.

James came back by splitting Steph and Durant for another layup, giving him 11 points for the half, and then raced back to swat a Zaza attempt with 1.8 seconds remaining.

Curry missed a three over LeBron at the buzzer and the Warriors took a 55-52 lead into halftime.

Durant led all scorers with 17 points on 5-for-8 field, while Love tallied 14 points.

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(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @ itsdreday)