warriors game day: loss in toronto to raptors (Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram, via @nicmarchioni)
The Golden State Warriors started the trip to face the Toronto Raptors with some good-natured fun in New York yesterday, the day after they had dismantled the lowly New York Knicks, with a shooting contest involving head coach Mark Jackson and his trash-talking.
Laurence Scott provided the story:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDXPVy4MuVw&w=560&h=315]Rusty Simmons posted a picture of Stephen Curry‘s one-legged, two-handed dribbling drill and said, “This game is too easy for him.” What we were trying to figure out, though, was what David Lee was doing behind him, trying to master the no-ball version of that?
In short, the Warriors were in good spirits coming into Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, although Jermaine O’Neal had a passport issue and never made it into Canada (he will rejoin the team in Indiana tomorrow).
The team would have to be careful not to take this Rudy Gay-less version of the team that they had come from behind by 27 points to beat back at #Roaracle.
Perhaps the team was too confident, as we’ve seen so many times this year. We found a picture of Klay Thompson shooting pregame today. It was an early tipoff of 4:00PM Eastern time.
IN-GAME
The Warriors led early but only by a little bit, 16-15 with 5:16 to go in the first frame. They led 28-25 at the end of the quarter. Here were two of David Lee‘s 10 points. Curry also had 10 early.
With 5:37 to go in the 2nd quarter, it was Raptors 40, Warriors 37. At halftime, the Raptors found themselves up, 55-50. Curry had 15 points, 3 assists, and 0 turnovers, while Lee added 12 points, 6 rebounds. For the Raptors, All-Star DeMar DeRozan had 16. With 2:55 to go in the third quarter, the Warriors were edging the Raptors, 69-68. Curry pushed his totals up to 25 points, 5 assists and Lee 14-and-7.
From the lower level at Air Canada Centre earlier, Harrison Barnes hit a trey. Here’s a courtside clip of the action from earlier in the game.
At the end of the third quarter, the Warriors had a slim 78-75 lead. Curry was up to 29 points, scoring 14 of them in the 3rd. This was a nice courtside shot of him shooting in his Oscars-inspired gold Under Armour Anatomix Spawns.
The Warriors trailed by as little as 95-95 in the fourth, but eventually succumbed, 104-98. Per Jim Barnett on the air, the Warriors “disintegrated” at the end with three turnovers in the last five possessions. Curry finished with 34 points and 7 assists. Lee had 20 points and 11 rebounds in the losing effort.
POST-GAME
Curry was able to recount some of the late mistakes, mostly made by him. Per Warriors.com:
“Obviously we put ourselves behind the eight ball,” Curry said, “A couple of them, I stepped on the out of bounds line, overshot Steve (Blake) by a hair, he just missed a pass, the ball bounces off my foot on the dribble, the fact that they just came one after another made it tough. It’s very frustrating.”
“A disappointing loss,” Jackson said, “I thought we played very well. With eight minutes and change, call a timeout and coming out of the timeout they go on an 11-0 run. We don’t take care of the basketball down the stretch. Little things like that are going to cost you and they certainly cost us tonight.”
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