Balanced effort leads Warriors over Rockets in battle of heavyweights

January 21, 2017 in Sports

HOUSTON — The Golden State Warriors made quite the statement Friday night inside of the Toyota Center.In the midst of a rowdy, electric environment, Golden State came away with a 125-108 victory to extend its winning streak to six games.

“Whenever you’re playing a contender, like they are, you want to try to get some momentum going up against them,” Draymond Green said. “And I think we did that tonight.” The Warriors’ starting five all scored in double digits, led by Kevin Durant’s game-high 32 points on 12-of-19 shooting. Stephen Curry had 24 points, hitting five 3-pointers.

This game featured six of the league’s top eight 3-point leaders. In their first meeting of the season on Dec. 1 at Oracle Arena, the teams combined to shoot an NBA-record 88 3-pointers. Houston (33-13) won that game 132-127 in double overtime.

On Friday, the results were diverse. Golden State (37-6) held a 14-point advantage in the second quarter, but Houston stayed in constant pursuit to trim the margin to two. The crowd was deafening, feeding into their team’s play with 28 seconds remaining in the first half.

However, Curry answered in Curry fashion by draining a step-back triple over the outstretched arms of big man Clint Capela to give the Warriors a five-point lead and some much-needed momentum going into the break.

“There’s two big plays,” Durant said. “Steph’s 3 at the end of the half was big. They had cut it to two, and I think [to start the third] they had ramped up the physicality and pressure, and Draymond scored the first layup of the third quarter and I think that kind of got us going a bit.”

That’s when the Warriors picked up their defensive intensity.

Houston turned the ball over four times in the first 2 minutes, 15 seconds of the third quarter. Golden State seized on those mishaps.

After Capela missed a cutting layup with 6:24 left in the third, Curry launched a heart-breaking, 28-foot bomb that found the bottom of the net. Houston coach Mike D’Antoni had enough and promptly called a timeout. At that juncture, Golden State suddenly had its biggest lead, 84-67. That timeout didn’t help. Moments later, Curry nailed a transition 3 to put the Warriors up by 20.

It all started with his 3 to close the second.

“You always want to end the half on a good note, especially after they made a little run in the second quarter,” Curry said. “I talk about it a lot, my college coach Bob McKillop at Davidson always talked about ‘Big Mo’ to end the half, big momentum [plays]. Those are the kind of plays where, especially on the road, you can kind of deflate the atmosphere going into halftime and try to pick it up right where you left off.”

Patrick Beverley, an 84 percent free throw shooter, missed two straight early in the fourth quarter with his team down 18. All he could do was shake his head as he backpedaled to play defense. The life was sucked right out of the building, and it never resurfaced.

Houston tried to make up ground by using its long-ball threat, but that was ineffective. The Rockets are tops in the league in 3-pointers, averaging 14.8 made per game and 40 attempts per game. But Friday night they were 7-of-35 from beyond the arc. The Warriors defended the 3-point line to near perfection.

“At the end of the day, they are great shooters,” Green said. “Sometimes you can contest and they still make them. So you definitely want to get those guys off the line.” The Warriors shot 53 percent from the field and 40 percent from deep (15-of-38). With no real long-ball success, the Rockets had no chance.

“I think it was good defense on our part,” Durant said. “They missed a couple of open ones, but they didn’t have a rhythm. I think we did good job of putting a hand up on their shots and getting out and rebounding.”

James Harden fell three rebounds short of his 14th triple-double of the season. He registered 17 points and 11 assists. But he also turned the ball over on a game-high seven occasions. Houston’s sharpshooter, Ryan Anderson, is battling the flu. He was listed as questionable before the game and played only nine minutes in the first half.

Green padded the stat sheet with 15 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists and a game-high 3 blocks. Klay Thompson supplied 16 points, and Zaza Pachulia contributed 10 points and nine boards. In the past three games, the Warriors have beaten the Cleveland Cavaliers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Rockets by a combined margin of 72 points. The steady improvement is there.

“We just want to continue getting better and I think we’re doing that,” Curry said.

The Warriors completed the first of a four-game southern road trip, with the Orlando Magic on deck for Sunday. It will be the first meeting of the season between the squads.