Warriors slow Doncic, roll in second half
SAN FRANCISCO — Once Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson caught their breath and stopped rushing their shots, the Splash Brothers got on a roll that proved too much for Dallas to stop.
Curry had 21 points and a game-high 12 rebounds, Golden State’s defense held Luka Doncic in check, and the Warriors beat the Mavericks 112-87 on Wednesday night for a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference finals.
Doncic scored 20 points but shot just 6 for 18 and 3 of 10 from deep. He made backto-back 3-pointers late in the first half to get his team within 54-45 at the break, but Curry and Thompson heated up and helped the Warriors pull away in the second half.
Jalen Brunson scored 14 points but missed all five of his 3s for the surprising Mavs, who stunned the top-seeded Suns in a 123-90 thumping in Game 7 on Sunday in Phoenix.
“They did a really good job,” Mavs coach Jason Kidd said of the Warriors’ defense. “They went box-and-one, they went zone. We understood coming into the series that we were going to see that. We’ll go back and look at the video and see what we can do better.”
Stopping Doncic is the tall task this time after the Warriors already handled two-time reigning MVP Nikola Jokic of Denver in the first round, then Ja Morant early last series before his knee injury. The job will fall primarily on Andrew Wiggins.
“I thought Wiggs was fantastic,” coach Steve Kerr said. “Doncic is as difficult a cover as there is in this league. … It’s important to make him work. He’s so good. Any great player in the league you’re trying to limit the damage that they do.”
Curry hit two quick 3s in sparking a 10-2 burst to begin the third for Golden State. Thompson scored all of his 15 points after halftime, his first of the game on a layup at the 10:22 mark of the third after missing his first four shots.
“We didn’t shoot a great percentage from 3, but we knocked enough down to win big,” Thompson said.
Curry, last season’s scoring champ, missed his initial five 3-point tries — four in the first — before connecting with 50 seconds left in the first half when he was 1 for 7. But he got involved other ways by dishing out four assists and grabbing seven rebounds in the first half.
The Mavericks couldn’t keep up in a drastic contrast of styles featuring the slow-paced Dallas attack and up-tempo Warriors.
“We would like to play our pace but the Warriors have a unique pace, they’re going to get out and put a lot of pressure on your defense in transition,” Kidd said. “We have to be cautious of that. We don’t want a track meet.”