ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — Two nights after a disposal of the young Timberwolves, the Golden State Warriors (15-2) were back at home to host the Atlanta Hawks (10-7).
The Warriors welcomed back Draymond Green and Ian Clark from injuries suffered two games ago, against the Lakers in Los Angeles, as well as Damian Jones from a short two-game stint at D-League Santa Cruz, although Jones was listed as inactive.
The Hawks were without Mike Scott (sore left knee) and Tiago Splitter (right calf strain).
Q1: Early Turnovers
The Warriors got off to a slow start, committing five early turnovers. Kevin Durant and Zaza Pachulia were guilty of two each on either bad passes or bad dribbles, and Stephen Curry dribbled down the right side out of bounds.
Meanwhile, Dennis Schroder stayed active and attacked Curry. Durant tried to break the stagnation, taking Paul Millsap right baseline and jamming the ball home, but there was a foul called well before that.
“KD” ended up having a stop-and-pop jumper go in and out, then on a side inbound after Draymond Green kicked the ball on defense, Kent Bazemore ran a misdirection with Schroder and got a layup at the rim, assisted by Millsap.
But the Warriors shook off the early rust as Curry drew a charge on over-aggressive contact from Schroder, then Andre Iguodala came in and played hot potato with Steph, back to Iguodala, then a touch pass to Green for an inside bucket:
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Kyle Korver back-rimmed a three, and Iguodala boarded, raced up court, and threw the ball back to Klay Thompson for a trey.
Hawks head coach Mike Budenholzer called timeout as Golden State crept back to a 14-13 deficit with 5:01 remaining.
Out of the timeout, Thompson hit a left banking runner, then got a chance to play hot potato as well as he got the ball back from Draymond for a right arc swish:
#Warriors lead Hawks 29-27 entering 2Q — @KlayThompson w/ 11 pts. and 3 three-pointers in 1Q pic.twitter.com/zzNuVeIday
— Laurence Scott (@LaurenceScott) November 29, 2016
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Later, Durant hit a right baseline jumper on a baseline inbound from Curry, and the Warriors took a 23-15 lead with 3:03 to play.
Malcolm Delaney answered back with a three from the top, but Steph threw a beautiful lead bounce pass to a cutting Green, who then dished a beauty of his own to Iguodala for a dunk:
.@Money23Green dish leads to @andre dunk on @CSNAuthentic. 🏀 pic.twitter.com/55T8y2jj2i
— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) November 29, 2016
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But Patrick McCaw took his eye off his man and Tim Hardaway, Jr. backdoored him, assisted by Delaney, Steph threw a bad pass, and McCaw ran into a Hawk running back on defense.
The only problem was, Millsap was ahead of the pack on the turnover and the refs had no choice but to call McCaw for a clear path foul.
Hardaway then found Mike Muscala inside on a sling pass and, although Curry answered with a trey on a catch from the left arc from Green up top, Muscala found Thabo Sefalosha in the paint, sealing Steph. Curry had no choice but to foul.
The quarter ended with a nice “hesi” drive from McCaw that drew a foul at the rim, although he split the pair of free throws, and Delaney hit another clutch bucket, while Klay tossed an airball from the left baseline at the horn, although he claimed he was fouled.
With that, the Warriors took a 29-27 lead into the second stanza. Thompson led all scorers with 11 points on 3-for-4 from downtown.
Q2:
Delaney kept the Hawks’ engine running to start the second quarter, dishing to Sefalosha and Hardaway for buckets, then taking a charge on Klay.
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Ian Clark came in and hit a triple, but Sefalosha broke free for a dunk on a cut, Klay’s fade-away went short, and Durant lost the ball to Thabo, who got fouled as Clark made a nice hustle to get back and contest the fast break.
With 7:45 to go, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr called timeout as the Hawks took a 40-38 lead.
Out of the timeout, Shaun Livingston kept the Warriors afloat with two buckets, the second on a cut fed by Draymond, and Clark made a nice floater after giving an upfake and attacking the paint, and the Warriors evened the score at 44-44 with 4:48 to play.
But out of the timeout, Green couldn’t hit a three and then threw a pass out of bounds to Curry from the paint, thinking Steph would zig when he zagged.
Golden State couldn’t take advantage of a Schroder bad drop pass to Howard, as the lead pass to Draymond was just a little too far and he missed the layup and crashed into the seats, but got back up okay.
The Hawks got two successive offensive rebounds on rather mediocre shots, then Bazemore drove and lobbed to Howard for an alley-oop that went straight down through the hoop.
Klay came back and missed a banker, but put it back:
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Both teams couldn’t hit as Bazemore and Curry missed, and Kerr called a twenty-second timeout with 1:13 left, down 51-46.
Out of the timeout, Thompson got a reverse layup fed by Durant, Bazemore couldn’t hit the two-for-one jumper over Klay, but Steph went too far under the hoop on an attack past Schroder, only to get easily blocked by the awaiting Millsap.
Bazemore streaked upcourt and got a layup with 1.1 seconds remaining to give the Hawks a 53-50 advantage at halftime.
Thompson led all scorers with 15 points while Curry and Durant combined to go just 5-for-15. Meanwhile, eight Hawks carried the team load in a very, very balanced boxscore for Atlanta.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @dcdannychoi)
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