Dubs’ Best Start Of The Season Win vs Suns Before Road Trip originally appeared nbc sports birea
SAN FRANCISCO — Whatever the Warriors do with their vast difference in the way they play this season at home compared to the road, there’s one Chase center warning. Still, Monday night felt different.
The crowd could not stop cheering. The bench rose to its feet with a plethora of celebrations. The on-court product was pure dominance in the first quarter.
After an 8–0 run to open the game against the Phoenix Suns, the Warriors led 43–21 after the first quarter. His 22-point lead in the 69th game of the season was the largest after one period of the entire season. The previous high was a 20-point lead on November 27, the 21st game of the season.
The Warriors led by 25 points. The Suns cut the lead twice in the third quarter to just three points. he never led Golden State won 123–112improved to 36–33 on the season and jumped to the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference standings.
Coach Steve Kerr said after the win, “Yeah, it was a great start.” “I think our players were ready to roll. We lost three games in a row to Phoenix in the regular season. I thought tonight our guys showed intensity out of the gates and executed.
“It was obviously the key to the game. We were able to stop him when he got his runs going, but that start was fantastic.”
In the Warriors’ wildly overtime victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday, the defending champions held their first quarter lead in exactly a month. They were ahead 28–26. This broke a streak of 11 consecutive games without leading after a period, and they trailed in 10 of them.
Monday night was a completely different scene.
A Klay Thompson 3-pointer 14 seconds into the game set the stage for him to catch fire and make the home net dribble from three after three. He drained four tres in eight-plus minutes, going 7 of 9 from the field for 18 points in the first quarter. His first three games against the Suns this season, all losses, didn’t go to Thompson’s kind.
He scored only two points and was eliminated in his first matchup. In the second, he scored 19 and was 3 of 9 on 3-point attempts. Then in the third contest, he scored 29 runs and hit six triples — again in the loss.
The future Hall of Famer saved his best for last, finishing with 38 points on 14-of-23 shooting and 8 of 14 from beyond the arc. He wanted to protect Devin Booker. There was a treat in his eyes. But Thompson says his extra gear wasn’t about proving a point against Phoenix or the Suns’ star shooting guards.
Thompson said, “No, I think when you make seven out of nine and shoot like that, it takes your emotions out.” “It always feels good.”
How great Thompson was in the first quarter, he was almost as great in the second. Each point may be even more important. As the Warriors’ offense struggled, his picturesque shooting strokes were sinking the shots.
After an 18-point first quarter, Thompson dropped 15 in the second quarter. The Warriors as a team scored 32 points in the frame. Jordan Poole had the second most points for the Warriors in the second quarter with five.
By halftime, Thompson already had his 10th game of scoring at least 30 points. He was 33 on 12-of-18 shooting and 8 of 12 on 3-pointers. Thompson has scored at least 25 points in a half 24 times in his career. The Warriors are a perfect 24–0 in said games.
“I think Clay has been in such a good place for a while now, for several months,” Kerr said. “In the two opening Phoenix losses, he really fought and showed a lot of frustration, so I know it’s good for him to have a big first half regardless of who we were playing, but like I said, it’s There is a division rival and a team that has beaten us in three straight.
“We knew how big a game it was and Clay knew how big it was. He came out and set the tone.”
For much of this season, the opening tone has been Freddy Krueger running his metal-clawed brown leather glove down an old-school chalkboard. The music is out of sync, the sounds are ear-shattering for all the wrong reasons. Although not this time.
He turned the ball over to the Suns in his 43-point first quarter. He was called for fewer fouls, grabbed one more rebound and twice as many assists than the Suns. Hitting the ball while unconscious doesn’t hurt.
As a team, the Warriors shot 72.7 percent from the field (16 of 22) and 72.7 percent from behind the 3-point line (8 of 11) in the first quarter. Along with Thompson’s 18 points, Steph Curry scored 12 and JaMichael Green had his second big first quarter off the bench with seven points.
It was the Warriors’ first double-digit lead after the first quarter since February 4, and their fourth in 2023.
“It’s important because you want to assert yourself early and make the game as easy as possible and give yourself some life,” Curry said. “You need to do it on the road, but even when we got down big we fought back and got back in a game.
“So, we want to put together good quarters and stack them up and we have done that in the last two games. The challenge now is what do we do on Wednesday.”
Connected: Clay emerged for 33 points on eight 3s in the first half vs. the Suns
Everything is moot until the Warriors prove themselves away from the Bay. Their current eight-game win streak and eight-game losing streak at home paint a true picture of this season. The Clippers are then about to embark on a five-game road trip, with the team tied in the standings with the Warriors and likely to win their four-game season-long series.
Everything becomes easier when the pit is not dug from the beginning. The pits have been filled with sand this season. The Warriors were outscored by five points in the second quarter and seven in the fourth before scoring one point more than the Suns in the final 12 minutes.
A smooth track was created by defensively locking down and performing from two of the greatest shooters of all time. The Warriors have never looked back, and are sending the message that they are finally ready to do it on the road.
