Will Richard drove his hands right into the fray late in the fourth quarter as two Brooklyn Nets lay on their backs with the ball near midcourt of the Barclay\u2019s Center. The Warriors rookie from Florida ripped the ball away and dribbled toward a completely unguarded basket.<\/p>\n
But instead of scoring the two easiest points of his young career, he dished off to teammate Trayce Jackson-Davis for a thunderous dunk. A few minutes later, De\u2019Anthony Melton and Richard scored on back-to-back open-court layups off forced turnovers to ice the game. Like they had all game, the Warriors bench mob stole the show in Golden State\u2019s 120-107 victory over the Nets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat group came in and really got the game right, and from there it was really fun to watch to watch everybody contribute,\u201d Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.<\/p>\n
The Warriors bench put up 58 points, with Jackson-Davis (11), Richard (10), Melton (10) and Gary Payton II (10) all hitting double figures. Steph Curry scored 27 and surpassed Kevin Garnett (26,071) to move into 21st on the all-time NBA scoring list. Jimmy Butler scored 21 points and made 11 of 12 free throws. Michael Porter Jr. led the Nets with 27 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never gets old coaching Steph Curry,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cHe captivates people all over the world for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Golden State arrived in Brooklyn still smarting from Sunday\u2019s overtime loss in Toronto, the Nets entered Monday having won three in a row and having gone 7-3 in December.<\/p>\n
The Nets\u2019 winning ways were built off elite defense. Brooklyn, starting a super-sized lineup with four players standing over 6-foot-8, had held opponents to a league-best 103 points per game over the past month. Unlike in Toronto, where the Warriors gave up 70 points in the paint, Golden State outscored the Nets 56-30 in that zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coming off such a taxing game the day before, Kerr ran out a 13-man rotation in an attempt to keep his starters\u2019 minutes low.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gui Santos, Pat Spencer and Jackson-Davis played in the first half after not playing in Toronto. Jonathan Kuminga, though, was a healthy scratch for the fifth game in a row.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That depth was a strength early on as the Warriors built a 59-57 lead going into halftime. Jackson-Davis, battling illness, gave the Warriors energy from the center spot, scoring 11 and protecting the rim during his 22 minutes. Butler scored 10 straight points to end the third quarter as the Warriors went into the fourth quarter up 89-85.<\/p>\n
The Warriors (17-16) will finish their three-game road trip with an early start in Charlotte on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
DeMarco\u2019s last day<\/p>\n
One member of the Warriors\u2019 coaching staff will remain in Brooklyn after the game ends. Defensive guru Chris DeMarco is set to begin his new job as the head coach of the WNBA\u2019s New York Liberty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so grateful what the Warriors have given me, and I\u2019m going from one phenomenal organization to another,\u201d DeMarco said on 95.7 FM\u2019s radio broadcast, before reminiscing about starting under Mark Jackson in 2012 and being a part of four title teams under Kerr. \u201cTo be able to see it all, it\u2019s been unbelievable for somebody is still young in their career and still growing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 40-year-old is set to lead one of the league\u2019s top franchises, put in charge of getting the best out of Walnut Creek\u2019s Sabrina Ionescu as the Liberty hope to win their second title in three seasons \u2013 assuming the WNBA and Player\u2019s Union agree to a new collective bargaining agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kerr and DeMarco toured what will be the new head coach\u2019s office before the game and the Warriors\u2019 head coach wished him well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost surreal,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cHe\u2019s been just a great coach and great friend, and I\u2019ll miss him. Twelve years with him, and hugely valuable to our team. He\u2019s kind of done it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rotation changes<\/p>\n
Though the starting lineup of Curry, Moody, Butler, Green and Quinten Post remained consistent, the bench remained in flux against Brooklyn. Melton returned to the rotation after resting against Toronto.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team is being cautious with the guard\u2019s return from last season\u2019s ACL tear, and Melton is slowly ramping up his minutes from 20 per game while also keeping him from playing both legs of back-to-backs. He grabbed eight rebounds and was a team-high plus-22.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 39-year-old Al Horford was given the night off after playing against the Raptors the day before. Like Melton, he does not play back-to-backs.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Richard drove his hands right into the fray late in the fourth quarter as two Brooklyn Nets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,2136,9140,21,9,24,63,8725,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-84403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-golden-state-warriors","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-san-francisco","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}