Warriors rise and shine, earn 7th straight victory
Mavs hammer Lakers; Suns’ Bledsoe scores 40
ORLANDO, Fla. — The noon Eastern Standard Time tipoff was more than a little challenging for Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors. At first, anyway.
Tied at halftime, the Warriors woke up. Curry and Klay Thompson each finished with seven 3-pointers and the Warriors won their seventh straight game, beating the Orlando Magic 11898 on Sunday.
This was the first Eastern time zone noon tip for the Warriors since 1995, when they lost by 34 points in Orlando.
“It just challenges you mentally,” Curry said of the early start. “We were talking about it in the locker room before the game. It is early, but it doesn’t matter what time the game is, we have go out and get a win.”
Curry had 14 points as the Warriors outscored Orlando 42-24 in the third quarter. He didn’t play in the fourth period.
Curry went 7 for 13 on 3s and scored 27 points while Thompson was 7 for 9 from behind the arc and had 21 points. The Warriors shot 19 of 42 overall from 3-point range while the Magic went 7 for 28.
After trailing by 11 in the first half and committing a dozen turnovers, the Warriors went into the break even at 50.
“Third quarter was great,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “It seems to be the time when we pick up our defense and it translates into some transition hoops and 3-pointers.”
Kevin Durant added 15 points for the Warriors, Zaza Pachulia had 14 and JaVale McGee added 13.
Elfrid Payton led Orlando with 23 points. Nikola Vucevic, Jeff Green, C.J. Watson and Bismack Biyombo each had 12.
“I think they took care of the ball much better in the third quarter,” Vucevic said. “We didn’t do a good job defensively.” TIMBERWOLVES 111, NUGGETS 108: In Minneapolis, Karl-Anthony Towns had 32 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists and hit the go-ahead shot with 42.5 seconds to play to lead Minnesota.
Towns hit 13 of 19 shots and also had four blocks and Andrew Wiggins scored 24 points in Minnesota’s fourth straight home win. Shabazz Muhammad scored 20 points off the bench and the Wolves rallied from nine points down midway through the fourth quarter for the win.
MAVERICKS 122, LAKERS 73: In Dallas, Justin Anderson scored 19 points and Dirk Nowitzki added 13 to help the Mavericks rout the Lakers.
It was the Mavericks’ 13th straight win over the Lakers, who have lost six of their last seven games this season.
The game was close for 10 minutes, with Dallas leading 23-22 before the Mavericks scored the next 15 straight to blow the game open. Nowitzki had seven during the run.
The Mavericks led 67-33 at the half and never looked back. Lou Williams led the Lakers with 15. The Mavericks both scored the most points and allowed the fewest in a half and a game this season. The 34-point halftime lead was the third-largest in franchise history.
The Lakers scored their fewest points in a quarter, a first half and a game.
All 11 Mavericks who played in the first half scored and had at least one rebound.
The Lakers showed signs of life on a 10-5 run for a 16-15 lead with 5:50 left in the quarter. Julius Randle scored four of the points, and Luol Deng and Nick Young each hit a 3-point shot.
SUNS 115, RAPTORS 103: In Toronto, Eric Bledsoe scored a career-high 40 points and had 13 assists and Phoenix handed the Raptors their third straight loss.
Bledsoe was 11 of 17 from the floor, including 4 of 7 from 3-point range, and Devin Booker added 20 points as the Suns won their second straight road game following Saturday’s win at New York. The victory also completed a season sweep of the Raptors for the first time since 2013-14 and improved Phoenix to 11-6 against Eastern Conference teams this season.
DeMar DeRozan had 22 points for Toronto and Jonas Valanciunas added 16 points and 12 rebounds for his 17th double-double of the season. It’s the first time the Raptors have lost three straight since Nov. 6-10, 2015.
Kyle Lowry was ejected with 1:30 left after a flagrant-two foul following contact with the head of Brandon Knight. It capped a night to forget for Lowry, who had 15 points but shot just 5 of 17, including 1 of 9 from 3-point range.