The Golden State Warriors were at the Verizon Center this evening to face the Washington Wizards. Stephen Curry was listed as a starter, indicating that he had recovered from his foot injury. Bradley Beal remained out with a fibula injury.
1ST QUARTER: Curry And Speights Help Warriors Recover From Early Drought
The eager Wizards, looking to break a three-game losing streak, got off to a fast start as their bigs, power forward Nene Hilario and center Marcin Gortat made early buckets.
To make matters worse for the Warriors, two early fouls were called on Draymond Green, the first of which was an in-transition and-one for Nene — which made it 9-0 in favor of Washington with just over a minute expired on the clock, prompting Curry to clap in encouragement for the team — the second of which was biting on an up-fake by Nene, further compounded by Green yapping at the referee for a technical, which John Wall missed. Green also couldn’t connect his first two shots.
It was Harrison Barnes who took it upon himself to end the drought, bolting past the older and slower Paul Pierce for a strong left-to-right layup.
The young and relatively undisciplined Wizards started to turn the ball over, but the Warriors couldn’t take advantage as they started to miss from close range.
Nene lost the ball to Curry, but Klay Thompson bricked off the backboard after spinning past Garrett Temple, Beal’s replacement at the shooting guard, but got bothered by the helping Gortat.
Wall’s explosiveness was on full display as he easily got to the rim, but he missed twice and that directly helped Curry, because he only missed one three-pointer before hitting a stop-and-pop from beyond the arc.
Meanwhile David Lee, who had subbed in for Green upon his second personal, was active against the flat-footed Nene, getting a lefty layup to go in early offense. Then Klay got a steal, outlet the ball to Barnes, who found Curry on the break for a two-handed (soft) dunk, all but dispelling any questions about his hurt foot.
All of a sudden it was just 12-11, Wizards, with 7:55 to go in the first frame. After a timeout by Golden State head coach Steve Kerr shortly thereafter, Andrew Bogut had a couple of tries near the rim that couldn’t find the bottom of net.
Curry looked spry, using hesitation dribbles and scissoring through the Wizards defense, but Lee added to the missed layup woes, blowing a bunny as he yelled, “And one!”, after Curry drew Nene on the double-team. Thompson also missed a wide-open layup on an alley-oop throw by Curry.
The Wizards were beating the Warriors down the court, as Gortat beat Marreese Speights, who had subbed in for Bogut, down the floor twice, but Washington’s turnovers held them back, only up 22-15 with 4:15 to go.
Speights and Curry then turned the tide, with #MoBuckets hitting four straight jumpers, all swishes. The first was facilitated by a beautiful behind-the-back pass with the left hand by Curry, even after Curry had momentarily lost the ball.
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Speights’ third jumper closed the gap to a 24-21 deficit, then Curry pulled up for a three-pointer to tie it up after Wall missed a jumper, his most glaring weakness.
Golden State’s defense also picked up, with Speights and Curry each picking up a charge while Washington committed its seventh turnover.
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A pull-up three by Curry off the dribble as Speights noticed Ramon Sessions hounding Curry, and came over to set the dutiful pick on Sessions, gave Steph 13 points in the quarter on 5-for-8 shooting and 3-for-5 from downtown, to go along with 4 assists.
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It would have been more had Curry’s next trey attempt not toilet-bowled in and out and, after the left-handed Lee also saw a righty go in and out, as well as a traveling on Speights for hopping on a jump-stop, Wall checked in with four seconds remaining to cut the Warriors’ lead to 30-28 at the end of the period at he used a screen at halfcourt to free himself of Leandro Barbosa, who had subbed in for Curry.
Wall’s explosiveness had two other Warriors back-pedaling as he hit the shot at the buzzer. Golden State took a 30-28 lead into the second frame.
2ND QUARTER: Another Buzzer-Beater Cuts Warriors Lead To One Possession
Green started the second quarter with the second unit and got his shooting stroke going again, hitting a right elbow jumper, capping an overall 12-2 run by the Warriors, to take a 36-28 lead early in the second period.
After a timeout at the 8:55 mark, Green added a three-pointer after Bogut received a pass in the middle and swung the ball out to Draymond on the right elbow.
Andre Iguodala‘s defense would then give the Dubs some momentum, getting a run-out dunk after disrupting a pass up top from Kris Humphries to Rasual Butler, and getting another steal and assisting Shaun Livingston for another slam.
The Warriors’ lead would stretch to 47-38 after Gortat missed and Livingston led the break, feeding Green for an impressive big-step right-to-left reverse layup with the right-hand with English off the board for Draymond.
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Speights almost had another quarterback-like touchdown pass to Barnes, but the referees did not see that his breakaway layup grazed the backboard as Temple leapt and swatted the ball downward and still in play.
Thompson finished the half off sloppily, missing a jumper short that led to yet another Wall-to-Gortat in-transition dunk and, with the clock winding down, making a silly turnover out of bounds into the baseline seats on a post-up by Speights. It was actually Klay’s second bad play in the same sequence, as he had lost a dribble with his left on the transition at halfcourt, but the ball bounced off a Wizard’s leg right back into his hands.
However, Klay atoned with a nice jumper after an up-fake and hesitation from twenty feet out on the right side, allowing Humphries to fly by with just 7.2 ticks remaining.
Even with Curry back in at the four-minute mark and the Wizards committing their alarming eighteenth turnover, the Warriors’ lead was cut to 54-51 at the half as Washington converted yet again at the buzzer, this time with Wall feeding Humphries for a jumper.
Curry led all scorers with 13 points and 6 assists, while Speights added 11 off the bench and Thompson had just 6 points. Gortat led the Wizards with 12 points, most of them dunks, and 5 rebounds, while Wall added 6 points and 6 assists.
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