A Stephen Curry outburst late in the first half helped turn the tide in the Warriors' 122-103 win over the Kings.
GAME LEADERS
The Warriors have made a lot of memories on Warriors Ground in 2015, and they added to that collection in Monday night’s 122-103 win over the Kings at Oracle Arena. Stephen Curry recorded a triple-double, he guarded his brother for a little while and made a fashionably late entrance to what turned into quite the Splash Party in the Dubs’ final home game of the calendar year.
What wound up as a comfortable win hardly seemed it would develop as such in the early going. A 10-point first quarter lead quickly disappeared, as the Kings went on a 28-7 run that bridged the first and second quarters. Sacramento rallied to an 11-point lead behind the hot shooting of Omri Casspi, who knocked down nine 3-pointers on the way to a career-high 36 points.
But then Curry took over. After going scoreless for nearly 21 minutes to start the game, the reigning MVP caught fire, scoring 17 points in the final 3:16 of the second quarter. Curry hit three 3-pointers in the final 1:08 of the quarter, and he went on to finish with 23 points, a career-high 14 rebounds and 10 assists for his first triple-double of the season and sixth of his career.
Curry knocked down six 3-pointers, and Klay Thompson (29 points) and Draymond Green (25 points) each connected on five treys of their own. The Dubs shot 20-for-42 from three-point range, thrilling the home crowd with one long range shot after another.
After taking a three-point deficit into the half, the Warriors took control of the game in the third quarter and put the game away with a 15-0 spurt that followed the ejection of Kings center DeMarcus Cousins. The Dubs out-scored Sacramento 32-14 in the period, affording Curry, Green and Andrew Bogut, who was a +20 in less than 14 and a half minutes on the floor, the luxury of sitting out the entire fourth quarter.
The win puts an end to the Dubs’ perfect five-game homestand, and they’ll finish out 2015 on the road with a two-game Texas road trip that tips off on Wednesday in Dallas.