The Golden State Warriors tried to stay unbeaten, on the road to face the Phoenix Suns on the back-end of a back-to-back after taking care of business against the Houston Rockets last night.
Klay Thompson sat out with a strained right hand sustained in a hard fall on a drive to the basket in which he got fouled last night in Houston. Leandro Barbosa got the start.
David Lee was out again with a re-aggravated strained left hamstring.
FIRST QUARTER
The first quarter was trademark Warriors basketball: a spectacular performance by Stephen Curry, solid defense, good passing and high-percentage shooting, but marred by a bevy of turnovers.
Here were some highlights:
- Curry gave a hesitation shoulder fake with the right-hand dribble up top, getting past his man and going high — really high — off the glass for the layup.
- Draymond Green gave a rather weak outlet pass after a defensive rebound to Curry at halfcourt, a Suns big man tried for the steal, but Curry went behind-the-back, left-to-right, parallel to the sideline, and streaked down the court past the big. Curry then scissored past the perimeter defense and dished the ball to a wide open Barbosa. Barbosa took one step back and drilled the open three-pointer.
- Curry stole another inbound pass, picking it cleanly after Miles Plumlee received the inbound after a Warriors made two. Steph then dribbled out beyond the arc and buried the triple.
- Barbosa was isolated against Goran Dragic on the left side, took him baseline, found Curry, who found Green up top for a three-pointer.
- Curry shook the diminutive Isaiah Thomas and delivered a pin-point interior bounce pass to Festus Ezeli, who made the baby hook.
However, Curry had 3 of the Warriors’ 7 first-quarter turnovers. Some of the more egregious turnovers included Andre Iguodala throwing a bad alley oop pass that had no chance of reaching its destination, to Shaun Livingston. Green stole the ball from Thomas, but on a probable 4-on-2 fastbreak, threw the ball way too far for Iguodala to catch.
Meanwhile, Dragic was keeping the Suns in the game. He hit three treys after going 1-for-13 to start the season.
Golden State took a 30-28 lead into the second frame.
SECOND QUARTER
Even with Curry and Bogut out of the game, the second unit did well to hold up the fort, although they, too, were mired with some bad turnovers.
Ezeli made his presence known with a right-hand hook, and participated in an extra pass that went to Livingston, who fed Harrison Barnes for an open three-pointer.
But even as Curry and Bogut checked in with seven minutes to play in the half and up just 39-37, the Warriors had trouble scoring, going three minutes without a bucket until Bogut finally hit a righty hook.
Golden State finally found its rhythm as they scored on a designed play (again) out of a timeout. Then Curry got a high pick from Bogut and penetrated into the paint with a very, very high-arcing finger roll. Iguodala then played tic-tac-toe with Brandon Rush, who had entered at the 3:00 mark, resulting in a Curry three-pointer.
Curry then stole the inbound pass again and went up and under for the layup. Yet another “five-point-play” by Curry.
The Warriors were up, 54-41, all of a sudden, with 2:31 to go in the half. Curry was up to 20 points at that point.
After another turnover by Curry in which he shuffled his feet, to his disbelief, the half was capped off with Green getting a block and yelling, “Get that $h!t outta here!” — audible on the TV feed.
Golden State took at 58-47 lead into halftime.
THIRD QUARTER
The Warriors couldn’t see it at the time, but the third frame was the beginning of a long downhill slide.
The signs were evident. Barbosa started the quarter with a bad pass that went to the backcourt, out of bounds. Curry found himself stuck on the left baseline, in between a shot and a pass. He ended up passing it to the paint where there were three Suns waiting.
According to Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group, at the arena traveling with the team, Kerr “lightly kicked his chair and grabbed at his whiteboard, send his marker flying.” It wasn’t anything over the top, but Kerr was certainly not pleased with the carelessness of the ball.
When Curry zigged, Bogut passed to the zag, a backdoor pass that went bouncing out of bounds as Curry got stuck in the corner.
There was a Green charge, a carry called on Curry, who was in disbelief, thinking his move was an effective way to get past three Suns. There was a shotclock violation with Curry on the bench, as Iguodala couldn’t get a shot off despite his height advantage.
“That’s not acceptable,” Warriors color analyst Jim Barnett said on the air.
The Suns went on a 10-0 run that was just the beginning.
Worse, Curry was inserted for the last possession of the quarter, but committed his third personal foul on a charge when, draped by Thomas, Curry let Thomas linger a bit too long on his body and not changing direction in time. There were only 1.8 ticks left in the quarter and you expected the Dubs to head into the fourth with a 10-point lead.
However, worse got ugly when, on the ensuing inbound by the Suns, Curry defended too tightly and drew his fourth personal foul with just 0.9 seconds remaining. The Warriors were in the penalty and the Suns ended the quarter cutting the deficit to just eight points, 79-71.
FOURTH QUARTER
With Thompson out with the strained shooting hand, Golden State needed someone else to step up, especially with Curry coming off a 39-minute game against Houston.
The spark, instead, came for the Suns in the persona of Gerald Green. After PJ Tucker blocked a Barbosa drive impressively, Green (Gerald) hit a three-pointer to cap a 9-1 run that tied the game at 80-80 with 10:14 to play. Kerr had no choice but to reinsert Curry.
Barnes had a few flashes in the pan, including a late-shotclock drive with his right hand, nudging the defender away, and fading towards the baseline for a good jumper, but on a back-to-back night and Curry in foul trouble, the Warriors needed more than that.
Curry did his best to be the hero, getting a runner that he felt was an and-one, then faking a three-pointer, driving, and throwing his body into Plumlee for two, but not getting the call.
Gerald Green scored 17 points in 15 minutes of play as another three-pointer made it 95-88. Until then, the Warriors had little to be excited about except Curry’s assist to a Bogut dunk, which Suns coach Jeff Hornacek countered with an immediate timeout.
Draymond had an airball early in the shotclock, Iguodala had an isolation on the much shorter Thomas that Bogut couldn’t deliver. When Bogut put up a shot that rimmed out and Iguodala boarded, he threw the ball back out instead of powering a putback over the small point guard. Then Iguodala missed a point blank layup on a nice pass from Bogut.
A wide-open Marcus Morris three-pointer in front of Draymond, after Curry’s tenth turnover of the night no less, was the nail in the coffin. That made it 100-89, Suns, with just 3:40 to go. Gerald Green had scored 14 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter.
Thomas made a three and Barbosa missed one, then Thomas drove in on Curry, who had 5 fouls at that point, to make it 105-91 with 1:52 to go. Kerr conceded as he brought in Livingston, Barbosa, Rush, Marreese Speights, and Ognjen Kuzmic for the remaining garbage time.
The Suns went on to win 107-95. Curry scored 28 points on 10-for-20 from the field, 4-for-10 from downtown, 10 assists, 5 steals, but 10 turnovers. Draymond Green had 22 points, including 3-for-7 from beyond the arc, 9 rebounds, tied a career-high 4 blocked shots, but also contributed 5 turnovers of the team’s ghastly total of 26.
Iguodala scored just one point in 31 minutes of play.
On the flipside, Barnes had 12 points on 4-for-7 from the field and 9 rebounds and Barbosa stepped up with 12 points in place of the injured Thompson.
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