This is a continuation of the first-half recap of the Golden State Warriors at the Portland Trail Blazers
3rd Quarter: Starters Halve Lead, But That’s It
The Warriors starters did their best to cut into the Blazers’ lead. Andrew Bogut scored early, open for a lefty layup on a dish by Stephen Curry, but he got his fifth personal foul shortly thereafter on a missed push-shot late in the clock by Harrison Barnes.
Golden State built some momentum after some stagnant sequences after Damian Lillard made an ill-advised lob pass from the right baseline that Draymond Green easily took away, led the break, and found Curry for a catch-and-shoot trey from the deep left wing:
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The Dubs got as close as 77-81 as Green rebounded a miss and went coast-to-coast after Barnes made a swooping dribble stop-and-pop from the top. However, the 7’0″ Meyers Leonard hit a triple from the left wing to stop the bleeding for the Blazers and their lead was 87-79 with 4:46 to play and a mandatory timeout.
Festus Ezeli and James Michael McAdoo replaced Bogut and Green, respectively. After a Klay Thompson turnover, his third, interim head coach Luke Walton replaced Curry, Thompson, and Barnes with Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa, and Andre Iguodala with 3:32 to go in the third.
A preseason game, the starters would not return.
The bench unit fared little better, in fact, the Blazers’ lead grew to ten by the end of the third frame. Barbosa drove left and threw the ball away, trying to find McAdoo at the last moment. Livingston drove left and got blocked by Ed Davis, which turned into a Lillard three-pointer after Allen Crabbe missed an open one and Meyers Leonard corralled the offensive rebound and the ball got swung back up top to “Dame” for the triple.
The only bright spot was Livingston taking an inbound from a Lillard made free throw, down the court, for a pull-up, sticking a short ten-foot jumper before the end of the quarter. That brought the Warriors back to a ten-point deficit, 97-87.
4th Quarter: Bench Unit Ugliness
Things got uglier from there, as both Iguodala and Livingston were careless dribbling the basketball and, just when you thought the lack of a shooter on the floor could go any further, Walton pulled Livingston, Barbosa, and Iguodala for Ian Clark, Brandon Rush, and Ben Gordon.
Festus Ezeli added to the carnage with a pull-up airball, and the lack of chemistry between Jason Thompson and Gordon became clearly evident as various attempts at posting up Thompson simply led to a shotclock violation.
Crabbe and CJ McCollum took advantage and after Crabbe scored his 23rd point of the night on a trey and McCollum his 19th on a jumper to follow that, Marreese Speights finally entered the game with the Warriors down 109-91 with seven minutes to play.
Golden State’s deep reserves couldn’t score until the 3:00 mark, when Gordon hit a jumper and Clark hit a transition three, assisted by Chris Babb who finally got a little burn — a good six minutes after McAdoo had made the last Warrior field goal.
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However, Rush’s passes were getting intercepted and tipped, Thompson’s predictable inside move was blocked by the venerable Chris Kaman, and Clark was too aggressive on defense, eventually doubling off Pat Connaughton and not being able to recover as Connaughton canned a triple.
All in all, not a very good game from a starters’ defensive standpoint and not much to go on in terms of training camp invitee evaluations.
Curry ended with 30 points and 7 assists, but Klay was stuck on 14, while Green tallied 14 points, 8 rebounds. However, the real story here was the Warriors’ 38.3% shooting from the field after shooting over 60% in the first quarter. The starters’ horrible first-half defense was improved in the second half and the Blazers ended up at 44.3% shooting.
Post-Game
Per Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle, who was the only beat-writer covering the game:
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Walton had concerns about the Warriors’ tempo in the first exhibition, when they attempted only 70 shots. They noticeably pushed the pace in the third quarter Thursday, trimming the deficit to 97-87, and managed to attempt 81 field goals for the game.
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“We made it a point of emphasis to push on makes and misses,” Curry said. “That’s the tempo we want to play, and as guys continue to get their game legs, we’ll see a lot more of that.”
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At least this will give the Warriors some teaching video before home games Tuesday and Thursday.
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“I think we have to have some great practices and get back to who we are,” Curry said. “That will show in the games. We had great energy in the Toronto game. We didn’t have a great practice on Wednesday before we left (for Portland), so we’re going to correct that Friday, Sunday and Monday before we play.”
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(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @koreybanks)
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