ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — The Toronto Raptors (7-4) were in Oakland to face the Golden State Warriors (11-0) on “The City” throwback jersey night.
Prior to the game, there was speculation that Andrew Bogut, who came off the bench the last two games behind Festus Ezeli, would get the start tonight.
1st Quarter – Warriors Look And Play Sharp Out Of The Gate
In their yellow “The City” jerseys, with Stephen Curry curiously opting for “semi-short” shorts that stopped at least two inches above the knee, the Warriors came out of the gate humming.
Harrison Barnes drilled a three-pointer, then Bogut tracked down a missed Curry trey and, nearly falling out of bounds, zipped the ball cross-court to Steph on the left wing, who then lasered it back to Klay Thompson on the right, who stopped and popped for a jumper.
Curry played great defense on an attack by DeMarre Carroll, moving his feet while retreating, forcing Carroll into a tough off-balance shot. Bogut snagged the rebound and threw a touchdown pass to Draymond Green, and the Warriors were up early, 9-4.
However, Bogut picked up two consecutive fouls on the same Raptors sequence and Festus Ezeli subbed in early for him at the 8:22 mark.
Curry then took an outlet by Green, went behind-the-back crossover against a retreating Luis Scola, and finished the layup high off the backboard with English to avoid the defender:
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The highlights continued for the Warriors, as Carroll missed again, Green got the board, outlet again to Steph, who whipped an alley-oop arrow to Barnes:
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After Toronto head coach Dwane Casey took a timeout, Ezeli was the recipient this time of another Curry dart:
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But the Raptors counter-punched, thanks to the talent of DeMar DeRozan (drawing free throws and hitting jumpers) and Kyle Lowry’s fadeaway. Then somehow the Raptors left Curry wide open at the top. Steph didn’t shoot it immediately, waited for DeRozan to bite, then fired and buried the triple. Perhaps Curry didn’t pull the trigger so he could further demoralize the defender?
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Curry then put DeRozan on skates but he couldn’t get the jumper to fall.
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Andre Iguodala checked in and the Warriors ran a weave, which eventually opened up Iguodala for a three that he calmly swished. Golden State went on a 12-4 run to close the quarter, as Barnes posted up James Johnson on the right block and made a deep fadeaway turnaround, Curry pulled up in transition for this trey with 19.5 seconds remaining…
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…and Ezeli disrupted Cory Joseph at the rim just before the buzzer.
2nd Quarter – Offensive Rebounds Worth Three Points
Ian Clark got the nod to start the second quarter and immediately delivered a three-point bomb that rattled in after a Leandro Barbosa miss, with Barbosa getting his own rebound and dishing back out to Iguodala who fed the open Clark.
Bogut was back in and made a turnaround hook shot, but quickly sat back down as he collected his third personal foul right after that.
Ezeli, of course, subbed in for Bogut again and disrupted a Jonas Valanciunas jumper, forcing a shotclock violation by the Raptors.
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Curry checked in and, soon enough, the Warriors made another run.
But it wasn’t before, once again, DeRozan and Lowry went tit-for-tat on layups and jumpers to match layups by Thompson and Curry. Klay then posted up Joseph and hit the turnaround fadeaway…
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…then he pulled up from 3 to put the Warriors up 49-41
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Golden State was scoring at a slightly higher clip and the lead grew to 53-45 after Klay got a stop-and-pop to drop, but Steph sneakily heisted Valanciunas’ inbound and a banker made it suddenly 55-45 with 3:17 to play.
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Ezeli knocked the ball out of Carroll’s hands on a drive baseline, and the transition play ended with Thompson finding Iguodala soaring in for the alley oop dunk:
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The Warriors had seized a 57-45 lead with 2:53 to go as Casey had no choice but to call another timeout, despite #Roaracle reaching a frenzied atmosphere:
But the Dubs weren’t done. Smelling blood, Curry tried a step-back three in transition, but missed. However, Ezeli was there to snag the rebound among two Raptors in the left block, threw it out to Klay on the left wing, and he splashed a triple.
More offensive rebounds led to more points as Green found Thompson on the left wing again, but this time he missed. Iguodala was there on the right block to snare the board, and fired out to Steph on the right wing this time. Splash!
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To add insult to injury, Curry swatted DeRozan at the buzzer, with DeMar angrily yelling at the ref for a foul after the horn blew.
The Warriors took a commanding 63-47 lead into halftime. Curry tallied 16 points, 5 assists, while Thompson led Golden State with 18 points. Lowry led Toronto with 14.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @rach_yarn)
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