This is a continuation of the halftime recap of the Golden State Warriors at the Los Angeles Lakers, where the Lakers took a 63-48 lead into the third quarter.
3RD QUARTER: Ronnie Price With The Shot Boi
Festus Ezeli‘s ankle was still bothersome, as he was blocked at the rim. After Wayne Ellington made the Warriors pay with a three-pointer after that, Marreese Speights checked in for the slightly limping Ezeli with 10:35 to play and the Warriors down, 69-48.
The Dubs got as close as 75-65 with 5:54 to go in the third quarter, as Stephen Curry got three pull-up jumpers to go down, one of them off of a steal on Ellington and the other after a defensive rebound on a miss by Wesley Johnson. Harrison Barnes and Klay Thompson also added threes.
Golden State head coach Steve Kerr then inserted Andre Iguodala for Speights and the Warriors were extra-small. After Ellington made a trey and Carlos Boozer got a bucket to go on a cut, assisted by Ellington, the Lakers and Warriors engaged in a 3-Point Shootout disguised as an NBA basketball game.
Ronnie Price got a corner trey to fall, assisted by Boozer drawing a lot of attention inside, Iguodala answered with a three of his own, but Price got another triple to fall, then, after a terrible pass by Draymond Green to a cutting Curry (the Lakers scorekeepers gave the turnover to Curry, his sixth, however), Price hit one more from downtown and Kerr had no choice but to call timeout, with the Warriors down 91-70 and 2:40 to play in the third frame.
Kerr rolled the dice by inserting the recently struggling Leandro Barbosa with 1:29 to play, down 91-71. Green made another bad play as Robert Sacre airballed a hook shot from the baseline and Boozer easily got the putback over Green.
David Lee got a cutting dunk assisted by Livingston with 9.0 to play, but Jeremy Lin answered back with a twenty-foot straight-away “lucky” bank shot over Green with 2.8 to play. The Lakers stretched their lead to 95-73 heading into the final period.
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4TH QUARTER: Bench Unit Makes It Respectable
Speights started the quarter as the poster boy for the Warriors’ woes, namely no respect from the referees, as Boozer pushed him in the back on a putback and there was no call. Speights was then called for a ticky-tack foul on a Boozer long jumper.
But after a Lee right-handed right-post-block make, Speights got a tough banker to fall over Sacre, and Lee got a bucket cutting to the rim, assisted by Speights. A Barbosa three made it 102-82 Lakers with 9:04 remaining.
Curry stepped out of bounds receiving the ball on the right wing and Kerr called timeout with 8:18 to go, sitting Klay Thompson and Curry. Later with 6:16 to play and still down big, 108-86, Kerr inserted Ognjen Kuzmic and Brandon Rush, effectively waving the white flag.
But a 10-0 run by the bench unit made things interesting, as Kuzmic got an inside bucket and Justin Holiday capped things off with a right-handed runner, and-one, to close the gap to a respectable 110-96. However, after some defensive stands against the Lakers’ second unit, Rush airballed a three-pointer from thirty feet.
Still, the Warriors got as close as 8 points after Holiday drilled a trey on an after-timeout play, but Lin answered that with an open three from the left wing and with just 35.8 to play, the Lakers were back up 113-102. Holiday nailed another triple and the Warriors played good scramble defense to force Nick Young to call timeout on the inbound, but after advancing the ball on the timeout, the Dubs had no choice but to play the foul game and ran out of time.
The Lakers won, 115-105. On a night with Kobe Bryant home resting, seven Lakers scored in double-digits, led by Boozer with 18 on 8-for-11 field and Price’s three three-pointers leading to 17 points.
The Warriors were led by Curry with 22 points on 10-for-14 and Thompson with 18, but Iguodala committed 3 turnovers in 15 minutes of play and Green was 1-for-6, Barnes 2-for-8, and Speights 3-for-8. No Warrior had more than 5 rebounds except for Lee, who led the team with 7. Ezeli had the tweaked ankle and Green was seen with an ice pack on his upper back.
Golden State fell to 23-4 and will face the Los Angeles Clippers at the same Staples Center in two nights on Christmas.
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