TALKING STICK RESORT ARENA, PHOENIX, AZ — One night after disposing the Houston Rockets, the Golden State Warriors (47-4) headed to the desert to face the Phoenix Suns before the NBA All-Star Break.
The Warriors were without Festus Ezeli (knee surgery) and James McAdoo (toe). The Suns were without Ronnie Price (toe), Eric Bledsoe (knee), Brandon Knight (adductor), and T.J. Warren (foot).
1st Quarter – Curry A Non-Chalant Dozen
After a jumpball in which the Warriors retained possession underneath their own basket after the tip from Tyson Chandler sailed out of bounds, Harrison Barnes got a dunk on a designed play where Klay Thompson set the up-pick and Stephen Curry inbounded.
Markieff Morris made a jumper, but Curry rebounded a missed three by Thompson and immediately scored the right baseline push-shot swish.
Draymond Green, Steph, and Klay then hit consecutive triples…
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…and Suns head coach Earl Watson took a timeout with 9:16 to go and the Warriors jumping out to a 13-7 lead.
Phoenix phenom Devin Booker came alive after the timeout, hitting two jumpers en route to 7 points over the next 6 minutes. The Suns started to answer the buckets that the Warriors put up.
Thompson drove in and lofted an alley-oop to Andrew Bogut, but Tyson Chandler got two of them, one an “and-one” (although he missed the free throw) and the other a nice scoop lob on a drive by Booker.
Bogut did well on defense, racking up a couple more blocks at the rim and Curry hit a catch-and-shoot from the left side that banked at a sharp angle, with Bogut supplying the weakside pick to free him up:
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Before that, Steph got another impressive banker on a spin-fade over Chandler:
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Still, the Suns kept hustling and Chandler got a rebound of a miss by P.J. Tucker that Bogut got a piece of, found Morris, and Markieff buried the jumpshot to close the gap to 22-20, Warriors, with head coach Steve Kerr taking a timeout with 3:40 to play.
Leandro Barbosa, who had checked in for Klay at the 4:47 mark, put his imprint on the game with two layups, the first after Suns center Alex Len missed and Curry pushed the ball up after rebounding it, which was Steph’s fourth assist, and the second on yet another miss by Len, pushed up the court by Andre Iguodala.
The quarter ended rather quietly except for this dunk by Len over Thompson:
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Curry tallied 12 points and a game-high 5 rebounds while Booker countered with 7 points and Chandler grabbed 5 boards.
2nd Quarter – Splash Brothers Keep Phoenix At Distance
The Warriors’ bench unit got off to a rocky start, although Marreese Speights hit a jumper on his first touch of the second period — he had missed a wide-open three from the top late in the first.
Iguodala missed a point-blank finger roll, Barnes had the ball slip out of his hands, Iguodala’s next finger roll was lost in mid-air over the backboard, and Klay took a desperation fade-away at a shotclock buzzer only to have it fall short off rim.
But once Curry and Green checked back in with 6:06 to go and Golden State holding a 40-35 lead, the Warriors’ ship was righted, although it took a couple minutes at first..
Thompson immediately scored a catch-and-shoot enabled by a Draymond screen, Steph’s fifth assist, but the Warriors couldn’t score for two minutes.
Even when there was no scoring, Curry still dazzled, such as this crossover in transition that was called a foul:
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Soon, though, Bogut got an alley-oop from Steph, then Chef Curry got cooking, pulling up from deep after Chandler missed and Bogut got the rebound.
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This forced Watson to burn another timeout as the Warriors started to slip away, 48-35 with 3:25 left.
Morris missed, Brandon Rush got the board, outlet to Curry, and Steph cooked up another pull up.
On another dazzling play which resulted in no points, Booker got blocked by Klay, Draymond got the loose ball in transition, then manufactured a three-point try for Curry as he drove into the paint. Steph got the ball, wasn’t in position, retreated, pivoted to find out that the Suns were lost getting back, and launched from beyond the arc, but missed badly. The ball clanged out of bounds, but the crowd was delighted by the deception and anticipation.
Phoenix closed out the half with two more alley-oops by Chandler, the second of which disgusted Kerr to the point of calling timeout, but the Warriors were still up by 14 at that point, 55-41, with 54.4 seconds to play.
Speights got a putback of a missed Green layup and Morris drilled a jumper, and Golden State carried a 57-43 lead into halftime.
Curry led all scorers with 18 points on 6-for-10 floor, 4-for-7 downtown, to go along with 6 rebounds and 6 assists, while Thompson added 11 points on 4-for-9 field. Bogut had 6 rebounds and Green only tallied 6 points, 1 rebound , and 2 assists along with 3 turnovers.
Morris led the Suns with 10 points, Chandler with 6 rebounds, and Booker with 4 assists.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @drshebashah)
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