After four straight losses, the Golden State Warriors are back in the win column, with a 110-105 victory over the scrappy \u2014 but lowly \u2014 Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night at the Chase Center.<\/p>\n
From the opening tip, it was clear that the Warriors had energy thanks to the return of Steph Curry, who played in his second game following a 27-game absence. Despite Curry\u2019s return, the Warriors were still extremely beat up, and playing without Al Horford, Kristaps Porzi\u0146\u0123is, Quinten Post, Gui Santos, and Will Richard, to go along with the season-ending injuries that Moses Moody (who appeared at the arena to massive applause) and Jimmy Butler III sustained. Then again, the Warriors weren\u2019t getting sympathy points from a Kings team that was without Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine, and DeMar DeRozan, among others.<\/p>\n
But it was evident that Curry\u2019s return had rejuvenated the Warriors, who brought full-on hustle to an arena that finally had life in it. That said, it took the funky starting lineup \u2014 Pat Spencer, De\u2019Anthony Melton, Brandin Podziemski, Draymond Green, and Malevy Leons \u2014 quite a while to find some rhythm, though they finally did locate a little, led by Spencer. Golden State\u2019s defense was solid, while Sacramento\u2019s offense was tremendously ugly at the beginning. The Warriors had gone 3-for-4 on threes before the Kings even attempted a shot from distance.<\/p>\n
But even so, the Warriors couldn\u2019t gain much separation, because their offense was still struggling. Curry checked in at the 6:24 mark with the Dubs leading by just a single point, and, not surprisingly, the spacing instantly improved. Yet that seemed to coincide with the Kings realizing that they were a very athletic team, and they started to use that to an advantage, opening up a lead in the process. After a few minutes, Curry started to get into a flow, and the Warriors trailed 26-25 after a closely-contested, back-and-forth opening frame.<\/p>\n
The second quarter was weird, especially at the beginning. The Warriors dialed up the energy level to 11, while lowering the execution level to 0.5. They weren\u2019t sloppy \u2014 that would come in the third quarter \u2014 but they just couldn\u2019t get anything going, at least on offense. They weren\u2019t able to make good passes, or get open looks, or convert buckets.<\/p>\n
Around the halfway mark, Curry returned, along with Green and Seth Curry, and that sparked the Dubs, who started using defense to lead to offense. Suddenly the Warriors were clicking \u2014 Melton was playing his best game in ages \u2014 and they had a 48-40 lead. The Kings responded with a few buckets, before Curry stole the momentum back with an unreal four-point play. Podziemski, who bailed the offense out time and time again, added a three shortly later, pushing the lead to double digits for the first time all game. Not long after that, Curry somehow managed a second four-point play, and suddenly the Warriors lead was 16.<\/p>\n
At the break, they led 66-53. They had turned the ball over just five times. Life was good.<\/p>\n
They had no idea what awaited them on the other side of halftime.<\/p>\n
Sloppiness. That\u2019s what awaited them, so it was entirely a self-inflicted wound, though give credit to the Kings for applying constant pressure. It was sloppy from the get-go \u2014 both teams were playing hard and scrappy, but only one of them was executing at a level befitting the NBA, and it wasn\u2019t the team that had a vested interest in winning the basketball game.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no need to linger on a no good, very bad quarter. After turning the ball over just five times in the first half, the Warriors had 11 turnovers in the third quarter alone. They especially fell apart late, when it seemed like they could barely hold onto the ball, let alone dribble or pass it, and the Kings pounced. Sacramento ended the quarter on a 9-0 run, and pulled to within four points when the buzzer sounded.<\/p>\n
The Kings finished the run in the fourth quarter, turning it into a 13-0 blitzing that tied the game, before Podziemski mercifully stopped the bleeding with a pair of free throws.<\/p>\n
From there, the teams threw punches back and forth \u2014 not literally, thankfully, though if you\u2019re looking for that, might I suggest watching highlights from the baseball game between the Angels and Braves. Neither team could gain any separation, and it really felt like each team was just waiting for Curry to check back into the game.<\/p>\n
He did so at the 5:53 mark, once again accompanied by his brother and Green. This time the Warriors were down two, but Seth immediately drained a three to shift the momentum.<\/p>\n
Still, it nearly came down to the wire. The game was tied with two minutes remaining, when Steph rose for a corner three.<\/p>\n
It missed. You didn\u2019t expect me to say that, did you? But he read it all the way, dashed in for his own rebound, whipped the ball back out to the perimeter, and watched Podziemski drain a three for a lead that the Warriors would not relinquish.<\/p>\n
The Kings, who have been eliminated, then employed a fascinating strategy that felt like an attempt to skirt the NBA\u2019s anti-tanking rules, and, for the second time in the last few possessions, purposely fouled Seth Curry, a career 86.4% free throw shooter. Both teams benefitted from this decision, as he made both free throws, pushing the lead to five with just over a minute remaining.<\/p>\n
Golden State got a few stops against a Sacramento offense that at this point just seemed to be goofing off, and they avoided disaster with a 110-105 win.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re used to the stars of the game starting in the backcourt, which was the case on Tuesday. But usually that\u2019s because Curry is starting, not coming off the bench. Instead, it was Podziemski and Melton who started and led the team in scoring. Podz had 21 points, four rebounds, and five assists, while Melton had 20 points and three assists. Curry, meanwhile, had 17 off the bench.<\/p>\n
But the unsung hero was the new guy: Charles Bassey. With the Warriors missing their three centers, Bassey \u2014 playing in just his second game with the organization \u2014 controlled the paint any time his number was called. He finished with a sensational line \u2014 14 points, 12 rebounds, two steals, and two blocks \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t paint the picture as to how huge his contributions were. For a deeply undersized team, he made the Warriors feel big. And against a Sacramento squad that had the athleticism advantage, Bassey helped equalize that mismatch. He\u2019s going to be a vital player for them the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
The Warriors improved to 37-42, and have just three regular season games remaining. The next one is Thursday night, when they host the banged up Los Angeles Lakers at 7:00 p.m. PT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After four straight losses, the Golden State Warriors are back in the win column, with a 110-105 victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3792],"tags":[7,4056,6,986,477,4055,52132],"class_list":["post-704843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento-kings","tag-basketball","tag-kings","tag-nba","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-sacramentokings","tag-warriors-scores"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116368040944463423","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}