The Golden State Warriors Saturday night game against the Charlotte Hornets got off to an odd start. Or rather, it became odd before it even started.<\/p>\n
Shortly before the game tipped off, the Hornets announced their starting five \u2026 and All-Star LaMelo Ball was not in it. And then, despite normal introductions for the Warriors in the minutes before the game began, the starting five that took the floor was not the starting five that had been announced \u2026 instead, Will Richard was on the court, and Jimmy Butler III was nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n
It was an odd beginning that was later explained. Ball was, indeed, active, and is just having his minutes monitored, so he came off the bench for the second time this year, due to Charlotte having another game on Sunday. As for Butler, who wasn\u2019t on the bench, it was announced that he would not be playing due to personal reasons. According to coach Steve Kerr, the Warriors didn\u2019t find that out until after the opening introductions; more importantly, Kerr revealed that everything is fine with Butler, and the All-Star is expected to play on Monday.<\/p>\n
With those oddities behind us all, the game began, and from there it was surprisingly normal. While fans surely kept one eye on the 49ers score (no spoilers here, don\u2019t worry), and with new Giants coach Tony Vitello in attendance, the Warriors took an early lead and never relinquished it, coasting to a 136-116 win, and never once trailing.<\/p>\n
The absences may have been ominous, but the actual start was encouraging: Moses Moody picked up where he left off on Thursday by draining a three on the very first possession of the game. After just two minutes, the Dubs led 8-2, and then pushed the lead to 14-5, with an unlikely source starring on offense: Draymond Green.<\/p>\n
Simply put, the offense looked absolutely gorgeous. The ball was flying around, players were cutting and screening, and the team was springing free for open jumpers. It was beautiful, and an absolute joy to watch. They couldn\u2019t really pull away though, because the Hornets started to find some offensive rhythm as well, following their cold start. With Butler absent, the Warriors struggled late in the quarter after Steph Curry went to the bench. But, thanks to some big minutes from Buddy Hield \u2014 who returned to the rotation with Butler and Gui Santos out \u2014 the Warriors figured things out late, and held a comfy 39-28 lead after the first quarter.<\/p>\n
They were rolling to start the second, but Kon Knueppel \u2014 who is have an utterly superb rookie campaign \u2014 kept Charlotte in the game. Golden State would build the lead up, but the Hornets would reliably attack it, though they could never fully erase it. The non-Steph minutes were a bit smoother in the second quarter in the first, and the Dubs kept the energy and effort level very high, even when things weren\u2019t working well.<\/p>\n
Above all else, the depth \u2014 which Kerr praised effusively after the game \u2014 kept the Warriors ahead, as there were contributions from up and down the roster (per Danny Emerman, the Warriors became the first team in NBA history to have 10 different players make a three pointer in three consecutive games).<\/p>\n
Both teams ended the half with highlights. With just 1.6 seconds remaining, Green made a brilliant pass to Brandin Podziemski, who sank a three from straightaway, giving the Warriors their largest lead of the night at 15. But the Hornets would respond, with Miles Bridges sinking a three-quarter court shot at the buzzer. Golden State led 69-57 at the break, and things were looking good.<\/p>\n
There would be a brief scare to start the second half, though. Behind Brandon Miller, the Hornets started to close the gap in the third quarter. The Warriors responded, but Charlotte again started to close the gap. And then, finally, Golden State was able to turn a lead into total control, as they exploded for a high-energy 17-3 run, which gave them their largest lead of the night. They were surging on both ends of the court, and red-hot from deep.<\/p>\n
Another superb performance from De\u2019Anthony Melton was punctuated at the end of the third quarter, when he scored, then picked Ball\u2019s pocket with just a few seconds remaining, dribbled the length of the court to try to beat the buzzer, and drew a foul with 0.2 seconds remaining. He would make both free throws, allowing the Warriors to carry a 112-94 lead into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
It was a drama free final frame. Curry only played a handful of minutes, and both teams emptied their benches about halfway through. And the Warriors waltzed their way to a 136-116 victory.<\/p>\n
It was one of the most balanced games of the year for the Warriors. Melton came off the bench to lead the team with 24 points on 8-for-16 shooting, while adding six rebounds and three assists. He\u2019s fully finding his groove, as this was the fourth time in the last six games that he\u2019s netted at least 19 points. The Hornets dared Green to score on them all night, and he responded \u2014 almost always to stop a Charlotte run \u2014 finishing with 20 points on 8-for-14 shooting, with three rebounds and six assists. In total, eight different Warriors scored in double figures: Melton and Green, plus Podziemski (16), Curry (14), Hield (14), Moody (12), Richard (11), and Al Horford (11).<\/p>\n
As a team, the Warriors shot 44.2% from deep (23-for-52), as they got clean look after clean look. Remarkably, despite Curry shooting just 2-for-8 and Klay Thompson playing for Dallas, the Dubs set a franchise record by making 20 or more threes for the third straight game. Go figure!<\/p>\n
Golden State made Charlotte look disjointed, but the Hornets young talent certainly reminded viewers that the future can still be bright. Miller finished with 28 points, six rebounds, and five assists, while Knueppel had 24 points and 11 rebounds, while shooting 4-for-5 from three-point range. There\u2019s a lot of exciting young talent on that team.<\/p>\n
The surging Warriors are now 24-19, and are 5-1 on their eight-game homestand. They\u2019ve won 11 times in their last 15 games, and firmly have their eyes on escaping the Play-In Tournament now that their schedule has eased up. They\u2019ll be back in action on Monday night, when they host the Miami Heat at 7:00 p.m. PT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Golden State Warriors Saturday night game against the Charlotte Hornets got off to an odd start. Or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85,151994],"class_list":["post-422020","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\/422020","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=422020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}