Happy days are here again — victory ends mini-slump at 2
The Warriors’ “crisis” was short-lived.
A day after head coach Steve Kerr said his team’s play in Los Angeles was “cause for concern and crisis,” the Warriors responded to a sloppy two-game losing streak by demolishing Minnesota 110-97 on Saturday night in front of the 94th consecutive sellout crowd at Oracle Arena.
“We have really good players, so if we lose a couple, they get really competitive,” Kerr said. “It’s a good combination to be really talented and you compete. Both times we’ve lost two in a row, it’s angered us, and we’ve gotten more locked in and more focused.”
The Warriors (24-5) had lost two in a row for the first time since Nov. 9-11, but with Saturday’s win they hold a one-game lead over Portland atop the Western Conference and are five games up on the Clippers atop the Pacific Division.
The Warriors won their 24th
game before New Year’s for the first time since flipping the calendar during the 1967-68 season with 28 victories. They’ve won nine straight home games — their best streak since winning 10 in a row in 1994 — and will play six consecutive games at Oracle over an 18-day span.
They played one of their most complete games of the season against Minnesota, getting double-digit scoring from six players, dishing out 32 assists on 41 field goals and limiting Minnesota to 44.2 percent shooting.
Stephen Curry led the way with 25 points and six assists, and Klay Thompson added 21 points, five rebounds and four assists as the backcourt duo each scored 20 in the same game for the 51st time. With Andrew Bogut (right knee) and Festus Ezeli (left ankle) ailing, fill-in centers Marreese Speights and David Lee com- bined for 20 points and 13 rebounds.
“They were both good,” Kerr said. “I thought Mo made some really good plays, and he’s always going to score. David was moving well. He didn’t shoot the ball well, but he looked active and was in the fray. It was a good step forward.”
Swingmen Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala each added 10 points. Forward Draymond Green scored a starting-lineuplow four points, but he did just about everything else, recording eight rebounds, six assists, a career-high six steals and three blocked shots.
“I told him in the locker room that it was the greatest fourpoint performance that I’ve ever seen. I mean that,” Kerr said. “He is our heart and soul. He’s the key to our defense. Draymond was just spectacular.”
It helped that the Warriors were playing a get-well game against the Timberwolves, who have lost 14 of their past 15 games and are playing without three-fifths of their projected starting lineup: point guard Ricky Rubio (left ankle), shooting guard Kevin Martin (right wrist) and center Nikola Pekovic (right wrist).
The Warriors have won 16 of their past 19 meetings with the Timberwolves, including a 102-86 victory Dec. 8 at Minnesota in which Bogut was initially injured. In dropping eight straight road games, Minnesota has allowed 114.4 points per game.
Regardless of the opponent, Kerr got almost exactly what he demanded during an impromptu practice Friday after getting back from Los Angeles. He said missing Bogut and Ezeli was no excuse for the Warriors’ dropoff, and he demanded a return to the unselfish passing and purposeful player movement that sparkled during portions of the team’s 16-game winning streak. The players got the message in the first quarter, when Speights and Lee com- bined for 16 points and the Warriors amassed 12 assists on 13 field goals to take a 31-23 lead.
The Warriors opened the game with a 19½-minute stretch in which they had assists on all but one basket. The first unassisted basket was Speights’ putback dunk that tied the score 15-15 at the 6:18 mark of the first quarter, and the second was a Thompson runner that put the Warriors ahead 49-36 with 4:32 left in the second.
The Warriors led by double figures for the game’s final 26:50 and built a lead as large as 27 points. Curry offered a thirdquarter onslaught, compiling 11 points on 4-of-6 field-goal shooting, including 2-of-3 three-point shooting, to go with two assists as he pushed the Warriors’ lead to 88-67 and then sat out the fourth quarter.