After 12 lead exchanges between the Warriors and Kings, Klay Thompson’s clutch jumper proved to be the difference.
SOUTH FINLAND — Before Wednesday’s tipoff, Warriors coach Steve Kerr stated that this one had all the makings of a “trap game.”
His group had tired eyes. De’Aaron Fox, their standout guard, was absent for their rivals, the Sacramento Kings. With five more games away from Chase Center and trips to Oklahoma City and New Orleans in between, it would be simple to ignore this one-time home game.
Steph Curry had a bad game, but the Warriors overcame all of those things to win 102-101 and secure their first victory in front of their home crowd.
Curry didn’t make his second field goal until six minutes into the second quarter, but he still finished with a team-high twenty-one points. With less than a minute remaining and trailing 1, Curry dribbled over behind his back to make an incredible go-ahead layup.
However, Klay Thompson’s valiant efforts were required to secure the win following Damontas Sabonis’s bank-shot jumper. Thompson’s jump shot from the foul line found the net for the game-winning basket with two-tenths of a second remaining on the clock.
It was evident that this was the 13th time that the two Northern California teams had faced each other since the season’s beginning. Twelve times they switched leads.
Without a dominant performance from Curry (a season-low in scoring and a season-high in turnovers), Golden State managed to stay in the game, never falling behind by more than 11 points thanks to the efforts of their supporting players.
Six players scored in double figures, including rookie Dario Saric, who finished with 15 points and had his best game as a Warrior. Saric made a few clutch 3-pointers.
Before the half, Andrew Wiggins had scored 12 of his season-high 14 points, demonstrating his ability to carry the load.
With a right knee contusion, Jonathan Kuminga was a game-time decision. He scored 12 points, including a 6-point burst in the second quarter when he scored a 3-pointer on one end of the court, stole a pass, ran the length of the court, and made an and-one basket on the fast break.
With a last-second jumper, Thompson scored 14 points, and Draymond Green added 13 points and nine assists.
Curry took just 15 attempts from the field but made seven of them, good for a combined 91 points in his previous two games against the Kings.
But he turned the ball over seven times, which was more than any other player on the team or for the entire season.
It was the 13th time the Warriors and Kings had faced each other since the beginning of the previous campaign, excluding their two preseason games. In the previous regular season, Golden State won four games to three and went on to win the Western Conference semifinals. This season, they will play twice more: on November 28 in Sacramento, in the first round of the NBA’s new in-season tournament, and on January 25 in San Francisco.
