SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Stephen Curry scored 23 points and knocked down a key 3-pointer with 3:45 left to help seal it, Jimmy Butler added 14 points, nine assists and nine rebounds, and the Golden State Warriors beat the Dallas Mavericks 126-116 on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Mavericks rookie star Cooper Flagg had 27 points on 13-for-21 shooting, six rebounds and five assists in his Christmas Day debut while Brandon Williams scored 26 off the bench.<\/p>\n
Klay Thompson returned to face his former Warriors team in the holiday matinee after missing Tuesday\u2019s home game against the Nuggets with soreness in his left knee.<\/p>\n
And former Splash Brother Curry kept sneaking a peek of Thompson\u2019s warmup before they met at midcourt for a greeting and embrace. Thompson received a warm ovation when he entered the game for the first time with 5:51 remaining in the opening quarter.<\/p>\n
Mavericks center Anthony Davis didn\u2019t return after exiting in the second quarter with groin spasms. Davis had three points, three rebounds and two blocked shots in 11 minutes.<\/p>\n
Draymond Green started and contributed seven points and five rebounds playing in foul trouble two days after he and coach Steve Kerr had a heated exchange during a third-quarter timeout against Orlando \u2014 with both later apologizing to each other.<\/p>\n
Golden State started 0 for 6 from 3-point range before the Mavericks even attempted their first shot from deep. Moses Moody connected at the 6:05 mark of the first quarter and that helped the Warriors get going \u2014 along with Al Horford.<\/p>\n
Horford returned from a seven-game absence because of sciatica in his right leg. He came in at the 5:27 mark of the first and made all four of his 3-pointers as the Warriors led 40-28 after one quarter. He finished with 14 points, De\u2019Anthony Melton scored 16 and Brandin Podziemski contributed 13 points, eight rebounds and four assists off the bench.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
The Mavericks play at Sacramento on Saturday while the Warriors hit the road to face Toronto on Sunday.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/p>\n
Janie Mccauley, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Stephen Curry scored 23 points and knocked down a key 3-pointer with 3:45 left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-369058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}