With Kevin Durant out, Klay Thompson and the bench stepped up to drive Golden State to a commanding win over Minnesota.
After struggling slightly to start the season, the Golden State Warriors have now won their last five games in blowout fashion, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight 125-101.
With Kevin Durant sitting due to a minor injury to his leg, Klay Thompson was the one who stepped up tonight as the big scorer, with 28 points and six made 3-point shots.
He wasn’t alone, though. Stephen Curry neared a triple-double with 22 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists. And perhaps more importantly, the bench caught fire later in the game with Nick Young, Omri Casspi and David West scoring in the double digits and JaVale McGee, Shaun Livingston and Patrick McCaw coming close.
Andre Iguodala, who started in Durant’s place, scored a season-high 11 points with a field goal average of 80% in his 20 minutes.
It was a huge victory, but it didn’t start out that way.
After kicking off the game with a Thompson three, the Warriors offense went flat early in the first quarter, as they missed seven of their next eight shots. The end of the quarter featured a rotation of Curry, Livingston, Young, McGee and Casspi - an interesting mix, as the team continued to struggle to get shots to land.
At a certain point it looked like the baskets were repelling the ball, as neither team could get anything going on offense. The Warriors turned the ball over seven times, but the Timberwolves weren’t able to capitalize on it, though they led by six nearing the end of the quarter.
In the closing moments, however, after air-mailing his previous attempt, Young shot from downtown to bring the Warriors within three. Curry would quickly deliver the rest with his first 3-point shot of the night to end the quarter tied at 22.
Kerr also started the second quarter with McCaw, Thompson, Casspi, Young and West, which, again, was interesting. There was a nice sequence of back-to-back threes from Thompson and Casspi, though.
The Warriors started the second half up by one, but that would change quickly. Clearly whatever Coach Kerr said to them in the locker room flipped the switch on both ends of the court.
Andre Iguodala started off what would turn into a scoring bonanza with six points in a minute and a half. Not to be outdone, Thompson followed with eight points in a little over a minute.
Thompson went on to score 13 in the quarter, Curry eight, Young had two more 3-point shots, and McGee scored six with a couple of stellar dunks as Golden State outscored Minnesota 44-26, leading by 19 going to the fourth.
Unfortunately, Karl Anthony Towns fell into Livingston’s knee in the fourth quarter, and Livingston exited the game to be looked at.
The Warriors bench continued to impress as they closed it out, scoring another 30 points to close it out.
The Warriors next play the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday in an early 5:30 pm game at Oracle.
