San Francisco – It was an encore night, but this time everybody got involved. The Warriors came out aggressive on both sides of the floor. They continued the momentum from last with Stephen Curry scoring 30 points to follow up his heroic 62-point night, to beat the Sacramento Kings 137-106.
“It just seemed like everybody was in sync,” said Steve Kerr.
Golden State got off to another early start with all five starters scoring early. After a slow start to the season the Warriors have finally found their chemistry on the floor. They jumped to a 20 point lead in the second and maintianed that throughout the game.
Curry lead the way with 23 points in the first half and went 7-for-11 shooting that included 4-of-7 at the 3-point line. On the other side of the ball, it was a disappointing first half for the Kings, Buddy Hield was completely absent early on, he had 3 points, one assist and 3 rebounds while De’Aaron Fox lead all scores with 11 points to end the first half.
“Draymond helped us a lot in terms of getting us organized, especially when I get off the ball” Curry said. “I told ya’ll yesterday about seeing pictures a little bit clearer and understand spacing. Everybody pitched in so it was a really good effort across the board and guys staying ready off the bench.”
Golden State improved their defensive effort by holding Sacramento to 32% shooting and going 4-of-18 on 3’s in the first two quarters. They also recorded 41 assists which is a season high thus far. The Warriors had 11 turnovers and went 23-of-43 from the arc. A key component to the success of the defense was Draymond Green.
“Well he’s the best defensive player in the world,”said Kerr. “He’s been doing this for a long time, he impacts the game so dramatically and then on offense he gets us organized. He’s kind of our point forward in a way and he’s the leader of our team. The first few games, we obviously desperately missed. This feels like the beginning of the season to me. We weren’t ready the first couple of weeks and we knew that.”
Green had been frustrated about his minutes over the last few games, tonight he played 21 minutes had 5 assists, 5 rebounds and two steals. Green wanted more time to play his game and tonight he showed exactly why the team depends on him for his leadership.
“That’s got to be the identity of this group,” Green said. “As we continue to figure each other out offensively, figure out where shots are coming from, the one thing we can be consistent on is our energy and effort on the defensive end.”
The first quarter was the key to the game with Golden State’s aggressive start on offense. But the flow between Green and Curry seemed to be contagious with the young guys like Kelly Oubre Jr. who finished with 18 points and Andre Wiggins added 18 points and had 3 rebounds.
“They know each other so well, their pick n’ roll game is beautiful to watch,” Kerr explained. “Draymond understands how to get Steph open, and I think our defense gets a lot better when Draymond is on the floor so Steph gets more transition opportunities as well.”
The Warriors have tomorrow off. Then they will host the Los Angeles Clippers for a 2-game series on Wednesday and Friday night at 7pm PST.
Photo by Warriors/Twitter
