After Gary Payton II, Juan Toscano-Anderson and Draymond Green led a 10-2 burst in the fourth quarter to expand Golden State’s lead to 20, Stephen Curry checked in to be the closer.
Curry re-entered the game with 4:36 left and the Warriors up 17. He didn’t even have to attempt a shot for the Warriors to score seven unanswered in 70 seconds.
Just as Stephen Curry wasn’t going to have two horrendous shooting nights in a row, the Warriors weren’t going to lose two straight games to the Phoenix Suns. They weren’t going to let Phoenix continue its franchise-best 18-game winning streak.
Curry hit six of his 11 3-pointers. Draymond Green (9 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 6 steals, 3 blocks) was a monster defensively and just aggressive enough on offense to tip the scales. Toscano-Anderson scored a season-high 17 points, while Andrew Wiggins provided steady shot-making.
The Warriors (19-3) dominated the second half to both even the season series with Phoenix and pull neck and neck with the Suns (19-4) atop the Western Conference. The 118-96 Warriors win sets up their next matchup, a Christmas Day tilt, to be even more epic — especially if Devin Booker and Klay Thompson are back by then.
Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ avenging victory.
Point God Showdown
Friday was the 51st time, including playoffs, that Steph Curry and Chris Paul faced off. There always seems to be a little extra fire when the two pantheon-level point guards share a court.
Heading into the showdown — in 32 regular season games only — Curry and Paul’s head-to-head stats were nearly identical. Paul’s 21.6 points per game edged Curry’s 21.2. Curry hauled in 4.6 rebounds to Paul’s 4.5. Paul averaged nearly three more assists than Curry, but Curry drained almost three more triples per game.
In their matchups, the Warriors were 19-13 before Golden State’s latest victory.
Paul, who averages more points in his career against the Warriors than any other team in the league, was the only Suns player to earn noticeable boos from the Chase Center crowd during pregame introductions.
In Round 2 of Curry vs. Paul, the former started out by throwing jabs. Curry scored 15 points in his first 15 minutes, nailing four 3-pointers. Unlike Tuesday, when Mikal Bridges and Co. held Curry to 12 points on 4-for-21 shooting, the Suns couldn’t stay locked to the sharpshooter.
Paul, meanwhile, steadily orchestrated Phoenix’s offense like he always does. He only attempted three first-half field goals, but recorded eight points, five assists and two turnovers. His rip-through moves and crafty play in the lane helped the Suns gain a massive free-throw advantage.
Paul doesn’t defend Curry one-on-one nearly as much as he used to, but the two still stand out as on-court rivals; the two best players on the court at all times.
Much has been made about the budding Suns-Warriors rivalry. The Curry-Paul feud — one undoubtedly filled with mutual respect —has been there for years.
Not JaVale’s night
In a three-minute span, JaVale McGee got dunked on by Juan Toscano-Anderson, surrendered and-1s to Nemanja Bjelica and Stephen Curry, and allowed an offensive rebound on a missed free throw to Gary Payton II, who’s nine inches shorter than the center.
It wasn’t the best stretch of McGee’s career.
The poor stint started with Toscano-Anderson’s jam. The 33-year-old big deserves credit for challenging Toscano-Anderson at the rim, but the Warrior reserve had plenty of runway to detonate.
Shortly after Toscano-Anderson’s dunk, McGee closed out way too aggressively on Bjelica on the left wing. The forward easily toasted him, and McGee grazed him at the rim trying to recover. Payton II snuck through the paint and tapped Bjelica’s free throw miss back out to the perimeter, where Bjelica completed the unconventional four-point play.
Monty Williams subbed McGee out after Curry finished an and-1 floater over him, taking contact off his hip from Cameron Payne.
The Warriors outscored the Suns by 11 in McGee’s first three minutes on the court. Williams gave him another look in the second half, but McGee finished with a plus-minus of -15.
McGee is a very strong backup center and has carved out a wonderful career that includes three titles — two with Golden State. But he’ll always have this video.
A curious free-throw advantage
Rarely does a home team have as much of a disadvantage that the free throw line as the Warriors did against the Suns.
Despite attacking the rim about as much — GSW outscored the Suns in the paint and recorded more offensive rebounds — the Warriors shot 12 foul shots to the Suns’ 35. And the Warriors’ total got inflated by some garbage time trips.
Otto Porter Jr. couldn’t believe it when he got called for a foul when he pinned Cam Johnson’s fast break layup against the glass. Draymond Green got called for a blocking foul at one point, and even Steve Kerr’s challenge couldn’t erase Green’s slight body contact.
At one point, a fan in the upper concourse pointed out the free throw difference: “23 to 2! Something fishy’s going on!”
Golden State’s first two free throw attempts were on and-1s. Another came in the fourth quarter via a defensive three-second violation (Curry uncharacteristically missed the technical). Two other Phoenix shooting fouls, including a flagrant, were obvious infractions to prevent Golden State dunks.
In the end, the free throw discrepancy didn’t matter for Golden State.