ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — This is a continuation of the halftime recap of the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Golden State Warriors.
The Warriors took a 56-48 lead into halftime.
Q3: LaVine Show Becomes Chef Show
Klay Thompson and Ricky Rubio traded jumpers to start the third, then Timberwolves head coach Tom Thibodeau called timeout after Stephen Curry drained a triple on a rotation pass by Kevin Durant, to put the Warriors up, 61-52, with 9:30 remaining.
During the timeout, the referees analyzed Rubio’s jumper and ruled that possesion a shot clock violation, giving the Warriors an eleven-point lead.
But Zach LaVine got hit, drilling a triple from the left corner on the catch.
Curry got a step-back on a switched Gorgui Dieng up top, but LaVine answered again with three more from the corner.
Kevon Looney got a two-handed dunk on a nice bounce-pass by Durant, but Rubio turned a missed three by Curry into a finger roll at the other end against a helpless Pachulia on his heels.
However, Steph made a nice cut and Zaza fed him, to feed Looney at the rim, who got doubled quickly. Looney threw the rock back out to KD who hit the triple.
Like in the first half, Durant then followed up a LaVine miss with a lefty inside-out dribbling attack, but this time lost the ball on contact that wasn’t called, and LaVine went the other way with a thrilling throwdown uncontested on the other end.
Klay couldn’t hit from deep, and LaVine took the ball 94 feet downhill with another lefty finish off bank.
Kerr called a timeout to the Zach LaVine Show, but still held a 71-62 lead with 5:17 to play.
Out of the timeout, Chef Curry showed up to crash the LaVine party, attacking the right side and lobbing to JaVale McGee for an alley-oop, although that momentum was quickly quelled by a bad leave-off bounce pass from Andre Iguodala to Durant, then a three from the top by Towns.
Iguodala made amends with a hesitation drive and purposely-missed layup that he knew McGee would putback, which he did.
But LaVine stayed hot and got his 23rd point of the night.
Another Steph runner swished through, Andrew Wiggins made a spectacular dunk over McGee…
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…but Curry upfaked Nemanja Bjelica and got a finger roll in the lane that rattled home, after a series of cat-and-mouse moves:
Steph Curry dazzles Nemanja Bjelica, puts him in the blender, gets the shooter's bounce on the layup pic.twitter.com/Cd0qfc0OlX
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) November 27, 2016
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Iguodala knocked away a Bjelica attack, then Curry went reverse layup and Thibodeau was forced to call another timeout as the Warriors took all the momentum, pushing the lead to 84-71 with 1:48 to play.
Bjeclica missed out of the timeout, McGee boarded to Curry, Patrick McCaw fed JaVale inside, and McGee dished back out to Steph for a three-ball corner pocket with a quick release over the closing Bjelica.
After Kris Dunn answered with a pull-up, Curry got another switch with poor Bjelica, and splashed from the left hashmark, Bjelica dejectedly shaking his head.
With the quarter nearly done with, Bjelica missed a three to answer, but luckily for him, Steph back-rimmed the last fireball try at the buzzer, and the Warriors took a commanding 90-73 lead into the final frame.
Q4: [coming soon!]
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