Klay Thompson leads short-handed Warriors past Cavs

klay thompson

Tired, short-handed and eager to get home, the Golden State Warriors could have taken the night off.

Instead, they looked like a team that needs to be taken seriously.

Klay Thompson scored a career-high 32 points and the Warriors, playing without three starters and a key reserve, beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 108-95 Tuesday night.

The Warriors were missing guard Stephen Curry (ankle), center Andrew Bogut (ankle) and forward Harrison Barnes (knee). Also, Carl Landry, one of the first players off Golden State’s bench, didn’t play because of a shoulder injury.

In all, the Warriors were missing an average of 49.1 points and 19.5 rebounds, but that didn’t matter. Golden State shot 54 percent, including 11 for 16 on 3-pointers as it hit the first nine from beyond the arc. The Warriors took control in the second quarter and built a 16-point lead in the second half.

”No matter who is out there, we’re still going to play Warriors basketball,” said David Lee, had 20 points and 13 rebounds. ”We could have mailed it in on the last game of a road trip, but everybody stepped up with a bunch of guys out.” …

Jarrett Jack, starting at point guard, had 26 points and 12 assists.

”I had to channel my inner Stephen Curry tonight,” he said.

Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving, who missed the morning shootaround because he was sick, scored 14 points on 5-for-17 shooting in 36 minutes. Irving was coming off the best week of his career when he averaged a league-best 35.7 points in three wins, was selected as a reserve to the Eastern Conference All-Star team, and was named the conference’s player of the week on Monday.

— Reported by the Associated Press

Warriors re-assign Jeremy Tyler to D-League

Jeremy Tyler

The Golden State Warriors have re-assigned forward/center Jeremy Tyler to the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA Development League, the team announced today.  He is slated to join Golden State’s D-League affiliate in time for the team’s home game this evening in Santa Cruz against the Erie BayHawks at Kaiser Permanente Arena (5:00 p.m. tipoff).

Tyler, 21, has appeared in 16 games for Golden State this season, averaging 1.1 points in 3.1 minutes per contest.  He has previously been assigned to Santa Cruz four times this season, averaging 15.0 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 30.5 minutes in four games.

Warriors continue to lose when playing in San Antonio

tim duncan

It’s been 16 years since the Warriors won in San Antonio. That means Tim Duncan has been a winner in every home game he’s ever played against Golden State, and he wasn’t about to let that change Friday night.

Duncan had 24 points and 10 rebounds, and the Spurs held off Golden State 95-88 on Friday night to extend their home winning streak to 14 games.

The Warriors have lost 28 straight games in San Antonio, the longest current road drought for one NBA team against another.

”Don’t say that. Why do you say that?” Spurs guard Tony Parker said, joking about jinxing the streak. ”We don’t really pay attention to those stats because every year is different, every team is different. Golden State is for real. They are a really, really good team. It’s going to be tough against them.”

The last time the Warriors won in San Antonio was 108-94 on Feb. 14, 1997. Four months later, the Spurs selected Duncan with the top pick in the NBA draft.

Parker added 25 points and eight assists for San Antonio (31-11), an NBA-best 18-2 at home. Tiago Splitter added 19 points and nine rebounds, and Danny Green scored 13.

”It was another tough game with playoff intensity,” Parker said. ”It was very physical and they are a very good team. They are playing very well and they played very hard tonight.”

David Lee had 22 points, Klay Thompson added 21 and Jarrett Jack 20 for Golden State (23-15).

— Reported by the Associated Press

Stephen Curry hurts right ankle in practice

Stephen Curry hurts right ankle in practice

Stephen Curry has injured his right ankle again.

The Golden State Warriors point guard sat out Wednesday night against the Miami Heat after spraining his twice surgically repaired ankle during the team’s morning practice. Warriors coach Mark Jackson said Curry, who already had been nursing a sprained right knee, injured his ankle going for a loose ball.

The team said X-rays on Curry’s ankle were negative. Jackson said the injury doesn’t appear serious and he doesn’t expect Curry to be sidelined long. Jarrett Jack started in Curry’s place.

“It was really a freak injury,” Jackson said. “I’m not a doctor, but I can’t imagine it turning into something more. I won’t get into timetables and all of that, but we’re not concerned.”

— Reported by the Associated Press

Nuggets rally past Warriors for 5th straight win

danilo gallinari

Danilo Gallinari scored 21 points, Ty Lawson had 20, and the Denver Nuggets rallied to beat the Golden State Warriors 116-105 on Sunday night for their season-high fifth straight win.

Wilson Chandler scored 14 points in his first game in two months for Denver after being sidelined since early November because of pain in his left hip, which was surgically repaired last spring.

Stephen Curry scored 29 points, including seven 3-pointers, to lead Golden State. David Lee added 23 points and 13 rebounds and Harrison Barnes had 21 points.

Down by eight going into the fourth quarter, Denver opened the period with a 19-2 flurry to go up 98-89. Andre Miller and Corey Brewer each scored six points, running the floor and scoring primarily on layups. Kenneth Faried converted a three-point play when he muscled in a dunk and was fouled by Lee.

Lee broke up the flurry with a dunk and Curry conected on successive 3-pointers to pull the Warriors to within 100-97 with 6:10 remaining.

Brewer, who finished with 13 points, and Gallinari hit 3-pointers around a dunk by Gallinari to rebuild the Nuggets’ lead to 108-97. Barnes’ 3-pointer with 4:00 left cut the Warriors’ deficit to nine points but Faried shook loose for a breakaway dunk and the Warriors didn’t threaten again.

— Reported by Dennis Georgatos of the Associated Press

Grizzlies beat Warriors to complete 3-0 road trip

zach randolph

Mark Jackson figured his Golden State Warriors could be in for a tough night, calling the Memphis Grizzlies ”the best frontline in basketball” hours before tipoff.

At this point, the Warriors coach should know.

Zach Randolph, Rudy Gay and Marc Gasol had their way inside on both ends of the court to help the Grizzlies complete a 3-0 road trip with a 94-87 victory over the Warriors on Wednesday night. Memphis, which has won eight straight against Golden State, outscored the Warriors 60-34 in the paint.

”Those are our horses,” said Grizzlies guard Tony Allen, who had 10 points and four rebounds off the bench. ”We ride those guys.”

Randolph finished with 19 points and 12 rebounds, Gay scored 18 points and Gasol added 12 points and nine rebounds as Memphis made its quick West Coast swing more memorable. The Grizzlies (23-10) also won at Phoenix on Sunday and at Sacramento on Monday, building a 1 1/2-game lead over Golden State (22-12) for fourth place in the Western Conference.

”We needed this,” said Gay, who also had six assists and five rebounds. ”We’ve been going through some ups and downs and had some lapses, some kind of lapse games. We lost a couple at home. We had to come out here for ourselves to get three out of three.”

Consider it done.

Stephen Curry scored 24 points and Klay Thompson had 20 points, seven rebounds and seven assists as the Warriors lost back-to-back games for only the second time this season.

— Reported by Antonio Gonzalez of the Associated Press

Andrew Bogut confident he will play again this season

Andrew Bogut confident he will play this season

Australian NBA star Andrew Bogut is confident he will overcome a serious ankle injury to play for the Golden State Warriors again this season.

Warriors owner Joe Lacob and the team’s coach Mark Jackson have refused to put a timeline on Bogut’s return to the court, raising the prospect that his season could be over.

However, the 28-year-old former No.1 draft pick was clear about his prospects despite missing the past 28 games.

“I’ll definitely play this season,” Bogut said on Saturday. “I think I’ll be ready to play this season. It’s just a matter of when.”

— Reported by AAP via The Age

Clippers step up and smoke Warriors

Clippers step up and smoke Warriors

The Los Angeles Clippers had no intention of going 0-3 against the Golden State Warriors, and they played like it.

Chris Paul had 27 points and nine assists, Blake Griffin added 20 points and the Clippers set a franchise record with their 12th straight home victory, 115-89 over the Warriors on Saturday night.

”We’ve been pretty good at home,” Paul said. ”I think that’s 12 in a row for us here. It’s all about our fans, and we feed off them. So we’ve got to keep making this a tough place to play…

Jordan added 13 points and eight rebounds for Los Angeles, which built a 23-point lead through the first quarter and won for the 19th time in 21 games overall. Coach Vinny Del Negro pulled Griffin and Paul after the Clippers built a 96-60 lead with 2:40 left in the third quarter.

Klay Thompson had a team-high 14 points for the Warriors (22-11), who had won 12 of 15 and were trying to match the second-best start in team history behind the 1975-76 squad that won 25 of its first 33. They were 23-10 in 1955-56 and in 1991-92…

”The Clippers outplayed us in every facet of the game, but it wasn’t due to a lack of preparation,” Lee said. ”NBA players realize that out of an 82-game schedule there are going to be nights like this, and nights where you win by 30. They were on their fourth game in five nights, and they outplayed us from the jump.” …

Shooting guard Jamal Crawford, who leads the Clippers’ reserves with 16.5 points per game, missed his second straight contest because of a sore left foot.

— Reported by Joe Resnick of the Associated Press

Warriors hand Clippers 2nd straight loss

stephen curry

Stephen Curry’s shooting stroke flowed so smoothly he swished shots without even looking at the basket.

At one point, the Los Angeles Clippers cornered Curry on the sideline near the Golden State Warriors’ bench. The 6-foot-10 Lamar Odom tried to crowd Curry out of bounds, and the diminutive point guard never hesitated to chuck up the shot.

”I lost sight of the rim and I knew it was going in,” Curry said. ”I haven’t been that locked-in in a while.”

Curry scored 25 of his 31 points in the first half, David Lee finished with 24 points and 13 rebounds and the Warriors coasted past the ailing Clippers 115-94 on Wednesday night.

After winning a franchise-record 17 straight games, Los Angeles has suddenly dropped two straight and has Golden State surging from behind.

Curry made nine of his first 10 shots, including 4 of 5 from beyond the arc, and added eight assists and six rebounds to pace Golden State’s 26-8 spurt to start the game. His twice-surgically repaired right ankle healthy again, Curry – along with Lee – is making a strong case to be the first All-Star for the Warriors since Latrell Sprewell in 1997…

Jamal Crawford scored 24 points on a sore left foot and Chris Paul had 23 points and six rebounds for the Clippers, playing with heavy hearts after learning of the death of owner Donald Sterling’s son earlier in the day. Small forward Caron Butler also wasn’t with Los Angeles because of personal reasons.

After owning the NBA’s longest winning streak since the Boston Celtics rolled off 19 consecutive games from Nov. 15 to Dec. 23, 2008, Los Angeles has struggled to shoot in losses at Denver and Golden State. The Clippers shot 38.5 percent in Tuesday night’s 92-78 loss at Denver and 36.4 percent at Golden State, ending a difficult 24 hours for the franchise.

— Reported by Antonio Gonzalez of the Associated Press

Warriors recall Kent Bazemore and Jeremy Tyler from D-League

The Golden State Warriors have recalled guard/forward Kent Bazemore and forward/center Jeremy Tyler from the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA Development League, the team announced today.

Both players were assigned to Golden State’s D-League affiliate on Monday (December 31) and participated in the team’s 109-93 victory over the Sioux Falls Skyforce yesterday in Santa Cruz.