The Golden State Warriors went through a lot of trouble this Saturday to beat some Brooklyn Nets (110-106) in which a great Kyrie Irving had to multiply to make up for the absences of the injured james harden Y Kevin Durant.
The point guard, who can only play away games because he has not been vaccinated against the coronavirus, posted his best performance of the season with 32 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists.
Irving also had Patty Mills as Luxury Squire with 24 points (6 of 8 in triples).
Andrew Wiggins (24 points and 8 rebounds) was the leading scorer for the Warriors in which Stephen Curry once again had a very difficult night in scoring (19 points with 5 of 18 shots, 7 rebounds and 8 assists).
More exciting than brilliant (both teams hovered around 40% shooting accuracy), the duel was decided 9 seconds from the end when the score was 107-106 for the Warriors and Kyrie Irving was called for an arguable foul on Klay Thompson while the ball was not in play, giving the home team a free kick as well as possession to close out the win.
The Mexican Juan Toscano-Anderson played 11 minutes for the Warriors in which he had 6 points and a rebound.
This victory means the fifth in a row for the Warriors while the Nets extend their crisis and they already add four defeats in a row.
Round trip
On a night with many stars per square meter it was a secondary actor like Nic Claxton who, with 5 points, starred in the start of the game (9-11 with 7:36 on the clock).
With Stephen Curry disappeared in attack (he only scored 2 points in the first half), the other Warriors All-Star, Andrew Wiggins, monopolized the attack with a splendid display of resources that disarmed some timid Nets (31-20).
The reaction of the Brooklyn team came in the second quarter thanks to Kyrie Irving and Patty Mills, a very dynamic duo that began to find cracks in the local fabric (37-33 with 8.59 for the break).
Very cunning and evasive, Mills hit two triples in a row that gave the advantage back to the Nets.
But then it appeared a brave Otto Porter Jr. who, with 8 points in the last five minutes of the first half, led an 11-4 run with which the Warriors retook command (54-47).
In a first part of comings and goings, neither of the two teams showed much success in the shot although the Nets especially suffered from his lack of 3-point prowess (4-for-18).
Irving alone is not enough
The local team left the locker room with their batteries charged and, basing themselves on a substantial improvement in their defense, They threatened to decide the match very soon (66-49 with 9:15 to go).
The Nets were beginning to make the game very uphill.
Porter Jr., impressive in his penetrations, pierced the Nets defense over and over as Wiggins kept scoring too easily.
Then Irving was resurrected.
The point guard threw the Nets on his back, began to loosen up in attack and hit the table with one more additional triple to announce to the four winds that the visitors were back (76-70 with 2.05 to go).
Irving had 14 points in that quarter alone and benefited from the veteran and strength of LaMarcus Aldridge, which closed all the holes in the inside game and left the Nets very alive before the final quarter (78-76).
However, bad luck struck Aldridge since he sprained his left ankle and had to leave the game as soon as the last twelve minutes began.
The Warriors got off to a running start with a 7-0 run, but the Nets took advantage of two straight Curry losses to tie the game with a very grown Mills (93-93 with 6.17 to go).
With the marker moving in very small areas, a triple by Klay Thompson with 12.5 seconds to go seemed definitive (107-103).
However, Irving pulled a spectacular new three-pointer out of his hat (107-106 with 10 seconds to go) that led the match to a denouement in which the free throws, and the referee’s decisions, smiled at the Warriors.