On Sunday night, the Golden State Warriors blew their chance at their first four-game winning streak of the season, and they did so in frustratingly familiar style: by falling apart late in the game, blowing a double-digit fourth-quarter lead en route to an overtime loss to the Toronto Raptors.<\/p>\n
They had no time to dwell on defeat, as they were stuck in the dreaded road back-to-back. And they had no time to overthink their late-game execution, as on Monday night they once again found themselves with a slim lead to protect in the fourth quarter, this time against the Brooklyn Nets.<\/p>\n
Only this time they passed the test. There would be no late-game meltdown. There would be no failure to execute. Instead, they refreshingly figured out how to play some of their best basketball late, as they defeated the red-hot Nets 120-107.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t start out very pretty, though. While the Warriors looked decent in the opening minutes, things went south quickly. Their offense stuttered and briefly died, while Brooklyn \u2014 shooting lights-out from deep \u2014 rattled off a 12-0 run to take a double-digit lead. There was a noticeable difference in the teams: the Warriors couldn\u2019t get anything easy on offense, with everything a slog and a struggle, while the Nets looked far more aggressive and stunningly more athletic.<\/p>\n
After the Warriors started to make things interesting again, the Nets had a second unanswered run in them, as they scored 10 straight near the end of the frame \u2026 though that was retroactively broken up when Steph Curry was awarded a basket (his first of the night) on an official review of a bucket that had initially been deemed after the shot clock.<\/p>\n
Finally, late in the quarter, the Warriors \u2014 driven by excellence on both ends of the court courtesy of Jimmy Butler III \u2014 found their rhythm. Behind Butler and Trayce Jackson-Davis (who had an exceptional game), the Warriors pulled to within two points at the end of the quarter, and trailed just 30-28.<\/p>\n
They immediately tied it up in the second quarter, and it felt like it stayed that way for the entirety of the frame. It felt like no team ever led by more than one point, as the pace of the game sped up and reached a delightfully chaotic level. Jackson-Davis continued his excellent game, while rookie Will Richard had huge minutes. When the halftime buzzer rang, the Warriors held a slim 59-57 advantage, in a game where the lead had changed hands a whopping 13 times in 24 minutes.<\/p>\n
Despite the lead, Steve Kerr opted for a new look out of the break, with Brandin Podziemski starting in place of Quinten Post in the second half. It was an understandable shift, as the Warriors needed speed to keep up with Brooklyn, and Post had struggled in the first half.<\/p>\n
But neither team could find traction early in the third quarter, as both teams found that there were lids on the rims. For a brief moment it felt like the Dubs were losing momentum, but then they blitzed a 10-2 run on the Nets, turning a five-point deficit into a three-point lead. That, unfortunately, was followed by sloppiness as the Dubs got out of control, but Butler \u2014 as he so often does, particularly in odd-numbered quarters \u2014 was there to save the day. Butler scored the final 11 points of the quarter for Golden State, stabilized the game, and gave the Dubs an 89-85 lead heading into the final frame.<\/p>\n
That, of course, is when everyone who roots for the Warriors got nervous, because we\u2019ve seen that show one too many times. But there would be no repeat showing tonight. The Warriors used an early 8-0 run to take a nine-point lead, but Brooklyn answered. Then it was Richard \u2014 with energy befitting his age, but poise far surpassing it \u2014 led another Warriors surge. Suddenly the Warriors were up 12 \u2014 their biggest lead of the night to that point \u2014 with under five minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
But, just to make sure you got a proper scare, the Nets had a run, and scored the next eight points in the blink of an eye. Golden State\u2019s lead was down to four, and it was officially nervous time.<\/p>\n
And then came the defining play of the game. Curry, who had on multiple occasions in the second half felt contact, thrown up a shot, made it, and had the basket wiped away with the foul being called on the floor, finally got the whistle to go his way, tossing up a spectacular shot through contact, swishing it through the net while earning a trip to the line.<\/p>\n
It was vindication, though it didn\u2019t last long. Rookie Egor D\u00ebmin answered with his seventh three of the night \u2014 a career best \u2014 pulling the Nets back to within four. But Richard found a cutting Draymond Green on the other end, and Green, after being hacked, made both free throws. With a victory \u2014 or a collapse \u2014 within reach, the Warriors found their best execution of the night. De\u2019Anthony Melton blocked a D\u00ebmin three, and turned it into a transition layup, then Richard bullied a steal, and turned it into a transition dunk. All that was left was to dress the windows, and even the Warriors did that better than the Nets, pushing the lead up to 13 as the buzzer rang, and securing a much-needed late-game win.<\/p>\n
Curry overcame a slow start to lead the team with 27 points, while shooting 8-for-15 from the field and 5-for-12 from deep, while Butler finished with 21 points on elite efficiency, shooting 5-for-9 from the field and 11-for-12 from the charity stripe. But it was the bench that starred. Three Warriors starters \u2014 Curry, Post, and Moses Moody \u2014 finished with negative plus\/minuses, while all eight of their substitutes earned positive marks.<\/p>\n
Jackson-Davis finished with 11 points and six rebounds, while Melton, Richard, and Gary Payton II each had 10 points. Melton and Richard were critical in the closing lineups, and finished with the best plus\/minuses of the day: +26 and +22, respectively. That was enough to hold off 27 points from Michael Porter Jr. and a career game from D\u00ebmin.<\/p>\n
The Dubs moved back above .500, to 17-16 in their penultimate game of the calendar year. They\u2019ll close out 2025 on Wednesday, with a 10:00 a.m. PT New Year\u2019s Eve game at the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday night, the Golden State Warriors blew their chance at their first four-game winning streak of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85,151994],"class_list":["post-380395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports","tag-warriors-scores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}