The Golden State Warriors traveled down to SoCal and faced the Los Angeles Lakers tonight, on the second night of a back-to-back after splatting the Charlotte Hornets like bugs on a Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson‘s “ride or die” windshield.
None of the Warriors played more than 30 minutes against the Hornets, so for all intents and purposes, the fact that tonight marked a back-to-back was somewhat irrelevant.
FIRST QUARTER
The Warriors certainly came out playing as if they hadn’t played the night before, especially Andrew Bogut. His offensive revival continued. After scoring 10 points in the opening frame, Bogut bested even that, with 12 points on a variety of hook shots and shot-put-like tosses, mostly with his left hand.
He also got rewarded for making the initial screen and rolling to the hoop.
Bogut even displayed more of his toolshed of tricks, outletting the ball going behind-the-back on a two-bounce pass to Klay Thompson, after Thompson had blocked Kobe Bryant. In transition, Thompson then blew past Carlos Boozer with the right hand and all Boozer could do was grab Klay’s wrist to put him on the line.
Marreese Speights was once again a force off the bench. In a pinball-like sequence, Harrison Barnes missed a three pointer, but Andre Iguodala got a hand on it and the deflection landed in Curry’s hands in the corner. Curry shot the three-pointer, but it was an airball. Sure enough, Speights was there to put in the easy putback over the smaller Bryant.
Curry finished the quarter with 7 assists as the Warriors took an early 34-23 lead after one.
SECOND QUARTER
The second quarter put the Warriors’ talent on full display.
Iguodala got a clean pick on Jeremy Lin:
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Iguodala would later finally hit a once-forgotten three-pointer to give the Warriors a 39-27 lead with 10:31 to go.
Speights got a putback and-one, one of two three-point plays he made:
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His second and-one was even more improbable, stepping with a strong dribble into the the big bodies of Boozer and Jordan Hill, and getting the banker to drop, hoop and the harm.
Then Klay not only impressively spun past Lin, but also delivered this beautiful assist to Barnes, who had cut to the basket:
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In another sequence, Bryant switched onto Curry after a high screen, Steph then took Kobe baseline left and gave an over-the-head reverse pass to a cutting Bogut, who went with the left hand off the glass, and-one versus Ed Davis:
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A few more highlights of the Warriors taking their talents to La La Land:
- Thompson went around a high screen by Bogut, drove past the perimeter with the left hand, then flipped it to Curry, who stepped back for a three-pointer.
- Curry got a switch in transition and, with Boozer on him, dribbled up, then did a step-back splash for three points going behind-the-back, left-to-right.
- In the waning moments of the half, the Dubs went two-for-one and ran a play with Klay curling off weakside from a Bogut screen. Curry delivered the pass, Thompson rose for the jumper, absorbed the touch foul and didn’t flinch, and buried the jumper plus the foul.
The end of the first half had the Warriors up, 74-55. That was more points in one half than the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder had each scored in their 69-65 final, which the Rockets won in OKC.
Bogut had accumulated 15 points and 8 rebounds by now, Curry 13 points and 9 assists, Thompson 12 points and 3 blocked shots, and Speights 16 points.
Meanwhile, Kobe had 28 points on 24 field goal attempts.
THIRD QUARTER
In the third, the Warriors imposed their will on the Lakers and completely annihilated them. The quarter ended with a score of 115-79 heading into the fourth.
Curry came out of halftime seemingly on a mission, getting a three-pointer, assisted by Thompson, going backdoor on Lin with a nice feed from Bogut via Barnes, going lefty on Lin and drawing the foul while banking the shot in, and splashing from deep in front of Lin.
After an Iguodala steal on Bryant which Andre finished with a soaring dunk, Curry stole the next sequence and fed Speights for a dunk as well.
Draymond Green even got into the action with two three-pointers in a row.
It was just varsity-versus-junior-varsity as the Warriors racked up these numbers:
- Curry had 30 points on 5-for-9 from downtown and 15 assists.
- Bogut had 15 points and 10 rebounds.
- Green had 10 points and 8 rebounds.
- Barnes had 12 points on 4-for-7 from the field.
- Speights had 22 points on 7-for-10 from the field and 9 rebounds.
- Iguodala had 8 points on 3-for-5 on field goals.
- Thompson had 18 points on 5-for-11 from the field, 6-for-6 on free throws, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 blocked shots.
About the only concern for the Warriors was Brandon Rush coming in and muffing a pass from Iguodala, then not corraling a defensive rebound as it bounced off his legs out of bounds.
FOURTH QUARTER
All the starters rested as the bench unit of Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa, Justin Holiday, Festus Ezeli, and Ognjen Kuzmic did garbage duty.
Golden State eventually won by the score of XXX-XXX over Los Angeles.
Kobe finished with 44 points on 15-for-34 from the field, 3-for-12 from downtown, and 11-for-16 from the charity stripe.
The Warriors next play the Utah Jazz on Friday at Oracle. Head coach Steve Kerr had previously announced late last week that Golden State would probably take tomorrow off coming home from the back-to-back, then practice on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
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