Warriors fall to Trail Blazers in OT despite late rally after early blunders

December 28, 2018 in Sports

Draymond Green and Klay Thompson have both fallen into offensive slumps as of late — and Thursday night was no different.

Late in the second quarter of Golden State’s 110-109 overtime loss to the Portland Trail Blazers at Oracle Arena, Green went to pass the ball to Thompson near the top of the key while trying to run the offense.

There was just one problem: The two were completely out of sync.

Thompson, while cutting toward Green, was drilled right in the face by the pass, which sent the ball flying across to the other end of the court and left Thompson looking stunned.

Just watch the play unfold:

Things went downhill for the Warriors — who had built a slight eight-point lead in the second quarter — after that mixup, too. Portland held them to just 18 points in that period to grab a slight six-point lead at halftime, and then easily extended that to 10 points midway through the fourth quarter behind a big 8-0 run from Seth Curry.

Golden State’s late rally
The Warriors, though, waited until the end to make their move. Behind a 16-6 run in the final 3:13 in the game, and a 5-0 solo run from Kevin Durant in the final minute with a heavily-contested 3-point bucket with less than 20 seconds left, Golden State tied it up 102-102.

Damian Lillard had an opportunity for Portland to win it, but lost the ball and was forced to throw up an errant shot, sending the game into overtime.

Down two points with less than 15 seconds left, S Harkless picked off an errant Steph Curry pass, and Lillard drilled a heavily contested 3-pointer to sent the Blazers back up by one. While Durant had one last look to win, he couldn’t get it to fall, giving Portland the one-point win.

Jusuf Nurkic dominated inside for the Blazers, leading them with 27 points and 12 rebounds. CJ McCollum added 24 points, and Lillard finished with 21.

Durant led the Warriors with a triple-double 26 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds in the loss. Steph finished with 29 points, shooting 6-of-15 from behind the arc, and Green and Thompson each added 15.

The two teams, though, will meet up again in Portland on Saturday night. We’ll see if Green and Thompson can get on the same page before then and help the Warriors redeem themselves at the Moda Center.