Foul-shot misses doubly painful in 2 overtimes
After he missed a potential go-ahead 17-footer in Sacramento earlier this season, Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson rehearsed the exact same shot 25 times before starting the next day’s practice.
He might take 2,500 free throws before Sunday’s practice.
Thompson, a career 86.1 percent free-throw shooter, missed two freebies that would have iced an overtime victory against Denver on Saturday. Instead, he clanked both, and the Nuggets were gifted a 107-101 double-overtime victory in front of a sellout crowd of 19,956 at Oracle Arena.
“I’m just disappointed,” coach Mark Jackson said. “This is the worst I’ve felt after a game. … We’ve got to be disappointed. It’s just a bad feeling.”
After missing the free throws that left it 94-92 with 13 seconds remaining in the first overtime, Thompson inexplicably let Danilo Gallinari drive right past him and dunk home the tying basket with 2.1 seconds left. To make matters worse, the Warriors had a foul to give and had just discussed the situation in the timeout huddle.
“The good teams, the good players, the great players: They miss free throws, shake their heads and say, ‘That’s OK. I’m going to get it back on the other end,’ ” Jackson said. “You can’t add bad defense to missed free throws, because you’re thinking about them.”
Thompson didn’t talk to reporters after the game, and as soon as Jackson was finished talking to the team, Thompson left the arena without changing out of his uniform.
Andre Iguodala and Gallinari took advantage of the second life, making consecutive three-pointers to give Denver a 103101 lead with 35.9 seconds left in the second overtime. With the weight of the Bay Area on his shoulders from the freethrow misses and defensive gaffe, Thompson missed on a three-pointer for the 10th time in the game, and Iguodala’s two free throws put the game away with 21.4 seconds remaining.
Stephen Curry had given the Warriors their first extra time lead, passing up a three-pointer and stepping just inside the arc for an open 19-footer that made it 94-92 with 47.8 seconds remaining in the first overtime.
On the next possession, Iguodala missed a forced jumper, and Andre Miller’s scrambling putback attempt was blocked by Carl Landry. He grabbed the rebound and called timeout, and the Warriors got the ball to their surething free-throw shooter, Thompson.
It was a rough moment in a rougher night for Thompson, who went 9-of-26 from the floor and 5-of-15 from three-point range. He paced the Warriors with 23 points, but almost shot them out of the game as they finished at just 38.2 percent from the floor.
Landry had 22 points, including 17 in the fourth quarter and the overtimes. Curry, who spent most of the night in foul trouble, had 19 points, and David Lee added 18 points, nine rebounds, five assists and four steals.
Denver was led by an all-around game from Iguodala, who had 19 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists. Gallinari had a team-high 21 points.
Thompson, who aggressively but unsuccessfully went at allleague defender Iguodala all night, made a threepointer 1:25 into the third quarter to put the Warriors ahead 43-42. It was their first lead since Thompson’s turnaround jumper gave the Warriors a 10-9 lead 3:26 into the game.
After sitting about 6½ minutes with five fouls at the start of the fourth quarter, Curry returned and Denver went right at him. Ty Lawson drove past him for a layup. Then, Curry was switched to Iguodala, who drew a double team and found Faried for a layup to give the Nuggets a 79-76 lead with 4:16 remaining. Curry responded, hitting threepointers on consecutive possessions to tie it 82-82 with 3:08 remaining.