Dubs get Kerr 250th career win
KL AY Thompson had the hot hand as the Golden State Warriors gave head coach Steve Kerr his 250th career win with a 122-105 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday.
Thompson scored 10 of his 25 points in a third quarter that was significant because it allowed Golden State to seize control of the contest at Oracle Arena.
Thompson hit his first five threepoint attempts while Stephen Curry and Draymond Green scored 17 points each as Golden State won their second straight contest.
“We stuck to the programme,” Curry said. “Our defence stepped up. Klay hit some big shots. We got success off our offence and that opened up the game.”
Curry also chipped in eight assists, and Green was celebrating because he had his first game of the last three where he didn’t get slapped with a technical foul.
Birthday boy
Kerr, the 2016 coach of the year, became the fastest to 250 coaching wins in NBA history, achieving the milestone in 302 games. That betters his former coach, Phil Jackson, who reached the mark in 346 games.
Kerr received 39 victories during a leave of absence following complications from back surgery at the start of the 2015-16 season, when his assistant Luke Walton coached Golden State.
Zaza Pachulia celebrated his 34th birthday by scoring 12 points and Kevin Durant added a season-low 10 points but he also dished out six assists.
LaMarcus Aldridge and Kyle Anderson led San Antonio with 20 points apiece, while Manu Ginobili had 13 points and six assists off the bench in the loss.
Golden State plays their final home game before the All-Star break against Phoenix today.
Elsewhere, Anthony Davis scored 44 points and Rajon Rondo had a tripledouble as the New Orleans Pelicans ended a three-game losing streak with a 138-128 double overtime win over the Brooklyn Nets.
The Pelicans won despite blowing a 28-point lead in the third quarter to the Nets on Saturday in front of a crowd of 16,500 at the Barclays Center arena.
Davis added 17 rebounds and Rondo finished with 25 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds for the Pelicans. Nikola Mirotic had 21 points and 16 rebounds, and Jrue Holiday chipped in 22 points.
“We just wanted to keep fighting, doing what we did to get the lead,” Davis said.
Allen Crabbe made eight 3-pointers and scored 28 points for the Nets, who appeared sluggish in the first half which put them in a deep hole. They then launched a furious rally in regulation which finished with Crabbe’s three pointer with 12 seconds remaining to send the game into the first overtime.
In Dallas, Germany’s Dirk Nowitzki scored a season-high 22 points and Harrison Barnes had 21 as the Dallas Mavericks spoiled Isaiah Thomas’s Los Angeles debut with a 130-123 win over the Lakers.
Thomas finished with 22 points an ill-fated 15-game stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers. This is Thomas’s fifth team in seven NBA seasons.
In Chicago, Czech point guard Tomas Satoransky had his career night cut short when he was left bleeding from the head after being fouled on a drive to the net by Chicago Bulls Bobby Portis.
Satoransky, who finished with 25 points in a 101-90 win, was taken to the dressing room with two and a half minutes left.
Portis was ejected from the game by the officials for his hit on an unsuspecting Satoransky.
“Everybody knows the rule. It’s a dangerous play,” Wizard coach Scott Brooks said.