Stephen Curry saw that there were no Warriors in the box score, but he still made a 3-pointer.
Although it wasn’t a very nice victory, Golden State will take them wherever they come in this challenging season.
On Monday night, the Warriors overcame a slow start to defeat the Brooklyn Nets 109-98. Curry scored 29 points,
while Jonathan Kuminga contributed 28.
The Warriors appeared to have lost their zest when the game began, having lost in
overtime in Atlanta on Saturday despite scoring 60 points and 10 3-pointers from
Curry. Golden State was restricted to 43 points in the first half and went only 2 for
11 on 3-pointers. They also had 10 turnovers, which resulted in 15 points.
Even though they were only 4 for 22 from beyond the arc during the game, with all
of Curry’s baskets, they outscored the Nets 66-49 in the second half.
“Unfortunately, in the second half we made the right adjustments, took control,
and never looked back. It was ugly on both sides, but I think everybody was trying
to execute and settle into the style of the game,” Curry remarked.
Despite going 5 for 28 (17.9%) on March 15, 2014, the season before winning its first of four titles in eight years,
Golden State hadn’t won a game when shooting less than 19% from 3-point range since defeating Boston 108-88.
Kuminga reached 20 points for the seventh time in his previous ten games while also grabbing ten rebounds. With
eight points, nine rebounds, and seven assists in the game, Draymond Green helped the Warriors outrebound the
Nets 60-38 and win 23-7 on second-chance points.
Cam Thomas led the Nets, who had won three straight, with 18 points, although he only shot 4 of 21. In a December
loss in San Francisco, Thomas scored 41 points, the most the Warriors have let up this year.
Before being dismissed in the fourth quarter for a flagrant foul against Brandin Podziemski, who finished with 15
points and 11 rebounds, Nic Claxton added 15 points and a career-high seven blocked shots.
The Nets scored 136 points in Philadelphia on Saturday after scoring 147 points against Utah on January 29.
However, they did not even come close to that level on Monday, shooting 38% and suffering from bad nights from
Spencer Dinwiddie (3 for 12) and Mikal Bridges (5 for 15), their top scorers.
But tonight, we had our opportunities. The Nets coach Jacque Vaughn stated, “If we took care of the rebound piece,
which we’ll continue to challenge our guys with—that’s been a little slippage overall.” “The rebounding piece is
definitely where we’ve kind of slid in, and we need multiple bodies to participate.”
Ben Simmons, who missed the start of a back-to-back, was not available for the Nets’ game. He is expected to play on
Tuesday when the team welcomes Dallas in Kyrie Irving’s return to Brooklyn.
Despite shooting 3 for 16 from three in the opening quarter, the Nets led 23-20, mostly because of 12 points from
seven mistakes committed by the Warriors. It took Golden State over half of the second quarter to get to 30 points,
and it took until 4:29 of the half for Curry to make his 3,600th career 3-pointer. Brooklyn led 49-43 at the half, but
Golden State’s opening two possessions in the third quarter saw two dunks from Kuminga, which appeared to loosen
up the Warriors. As a result, the Warriors outscored the Nets 32-21 to take a 75-70 advantage into the fourth quarter.
“It’s very easy to just switch and say in front against that kind of switching defense if you’re kind of jogging through
stuff,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr remarked. I felt that the second half’s opening five minutes really got things
going. With the cuts, our guys were much more forceful and sharp.
With 3:06 remaining, Brooklyn had narrowed the lead to four, but Kuminga scored the next four points, followed by
Curry’s five more to put Golden State ahead, 105-94.
