Curry hits 11 3s, scores 48 as Warriors slip past Mavs

A day after the Dallas Mavericks got the bad news that backup point guard and team sparkplug J.J. Barea was lost for the season, Stephen Curry brought more bad news — in the form of 11 3-pointers.

Curry scored 48 points while tying his season high for 3s in a game as the Golden State Warriors held off the Mavs 119114 on Sunday.

Curry’s 11 3s were the most ever by a Mavericks opponent. The last one was his most important, snapping a 114-all tie with 42 seconds left. Curry and Warriors coach Steve Kerr credited Kevin Durant for switching play calls to get Curry shots rather than taking shots of his own.

“That was just (Durant) taking the initiative, knowing that I had a hot hand,” Curry said. “Call it a decoy in terms of him being in the action but allowing me to work. The way they were defending us, it just made sense.”

Durant added 28 points, and Klay Thompson scored nine of his 16 in the fourth quarter for the Warriors, who received a tough test from a team playing without its top two point guards, Dennis Smith Jr. and Barea.

At Orlando, Fla., Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon each scored 22 points for Orlando, which benefited from James Harden’s awful 3-point shooting. Harden scored 38 points to run his streak of 30-point games to 16 but missed 16 of 17 3-point attempts. He made 15 of 16 free throws and had 12 assists and nine rebounds.

At Washington, Kawhi Leonard had 41 points and 11 rebounds and Pascal Siakam 24 points and 19 rebounds for Toronto, which recovered after blowing a 23-point lead and won its fifth in a row. Bradley Beal had 43 points, 15 rebounds and10assistsforwashington.

At Atlanta, Giannis Antetokounmpo had 33 points and Eric Bledsoe 24 points and10assistsformilwaukee,which improved to 12-0 following a loss and remained the league’s lone team not to drop consecutive games. Trae Young led Atlanta with 26 points.

At Los Angeles, Findlay Prep product Tristan Thompson had 15 points and 14 rebounds for Cleveland, which halted a 12-game slide. Kyle Kuzma had 29 points and nine rebounds for Los Angeles, which missed 27 of 34 3-point attempts.

At Denver, Nikola Jokic scored a season-high 40 points with 10 rebounds and eight assists for Denver in its 12th straight home victory. Damian Lillard had 26pointstoleadportland,whichhad won its previous four.

At

New York, Ben Simmons had 20 points, 22 rebounds and nine assists for Philadelphia, which dealt New York its fourth straight loss. Kevin Knox scored 31 points for the Knicks, who have dropped 19oftheirpast22.