Sports
By Kelly
Dwyer 2 hours ago Ball Don't Lie
.
Vince Carter scored 15 points to Stephen
Curry's 17 on Saturday. (Getty Images)
By the hair of its chinny-chin-chin,
the Golden
State Warriors kept their record-breaking hopes alive on Saturday
night, coming back to down the Memphis Grizzlies by a 100-99 score.
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The victory is the team’s 71st of
the season, allowing it the chance to tie the 1995-96 Chicago
Bulls’ record of 72 wins against the San
Antonio Spurs on Sunday, and the ability to break the record against
these same Grizzlies on the final night of the regular season on Wednesday.
It was a struggle. The undermanned
Grizzlies, playing without injured former All-Stars Marc
Gasol and Mike Conley, opened up a double-digit lead in the
fourth quarter behind opportunistic play from Matt
Barnes (who finished with 24 points and 15 rebounds) and some clever
feints from reserve guard Xavier Munford.
The defending champs, meanwhile,
couldn’t buy a bucket. Three-pointers either open or contested were off, as
guards Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson ended the night having missed 19 of
24 looks from long range.
There was even some question as to
whether Curry would see minutes in the fourth. Golden State coach Steve Kerr
stated that he’d prefer to keep the expected MVP’s minutes down to around 32 in
the contest, and Stephen entered the fourth having worked nearly 27. Curry sat
almost exactly half the quarter before coming in nearly the six-minute mark,
finishing the win with just 17 points on 22 shots.
No, this time the hero down the
stretch was do-it-all forward Draymond
Green, who came in at the same time as Curry and with the Warriors
down eight. He pushed the ball ceaselessly, keeping the Grizzlies’ stout
defense on its heels, and scored seven points during his fourth quarter set. A
tip-in of a Curry miss with exactly a minute to go gave the score its final
mark. Lance Stephenson airballed a desperate jumper on
the other end just before the final buzzer.
Perhaps more importantly, it was
Green’s killer defense on Memphis low-post stalwart Zach
Randolph that helped shape his team’s 71st win. Randolph could not
move into position on either block with Green behind him, and finished the
night with a 6-19 mark from the floor. Green, meanwhile, finished with 23 points
on 10-13 shooting, 11 rebounds, four assists and three blocks in 35 minutes of
typically all-out action.
Playing back-to-back games in
Memphis and San Antonio in any situation is a batch of cruel scheduling, but
these Warrior players know what they’re after. Still, it’s a bit of a surprise
that a lightened Memphis Grizzlies squad – featuring heaps of late-season
add-ons that weren’t in the team’s plans last fall – will give Golden State
just as much pause as the 65-win Spurs would.
Wait, no. This is Memphis we’re
talking about. This isn’t a surprise at all.
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