The Warriors overtook the Lakers and tied for eighth place in the West!Curry 22+8+7, ruling the last quarter, Ayton slashed 25+11, and the pattern of the West changed greatly!
Text: Lao Kan Kanqiu
Editor|Lao Kan Kanqiu
On April 12, Beijing time, the NBA regular season ushered in the focus of the West, and the Golden State Warriors went to Portland to challenge the Trail Blazers away. Prior to this game, the Warriors had a 44-35 record and two straight wins to sit 10th in the West, while the Trail Blazers had a 21-58 record and suffered two straight losses and ranked 14th in the West. This will be the fourth meeting between the two sides this season, with the first three meetings being won by the Warriors. Before the game, the American media ESPN gave a prediction of the winning rate: 82.1% for the Warriors and 17.9% for the Trail Blazers.
In fact, although the two teams are only 4 places apart in the rankings, the difference in team strength is indeed huge. Even though the Warriors' form has deteriorated significantly this season, the team's strength on paper is still crushing the Trail Blazers in terms of their payment of the league's most expensive luxury tax. As a result, the team opted for the strategic rotation of Klay Thompson and Dream Green, and for the Warriors, the results of tomorrow's back-to-back games against the Pelicans are more important. Although the Warriors have lost hope of finishing sixth, they still have to fight for the top eight in the West, after all, it is also important to win two lives in the playoffs.
After the Trail Blazers sent Lillard away this season, although they were strengthened in the later stages, they were already clearly rotten, and rookie Henderson cultivated for a whole season, and still couldn't see any bright spots, but was full of slots. And the team has also been full of injuries recently, Brogdon, Kamara, Grant, Sharpe, Simmons, Sablee, Lowe, Banton also temporarily withdrew from the game due to injury before the game, and the starting lineup is: Henderson, Ruppel, Murray, Walker, Ayton. On the Warriors' side, the starting lineup was only announced before the game: Curry, Paul, Wiggins, Kuminga, Jackson Davis (TJD).
At the beginning of the first quarter, Henderson started the first offensive and continuously tried to beat Kuminga, and stepped back to hit a three-point shot to get the Trail Blazers off to a good start. Wiggins was caught by the referee and Kuminga was cut off, and the Warriors had as many as five turnovers in the opening game. You also have to look at Curry, who received the ball at the top of the arc in the run, made a quick three-point shot and hit it steadily, Henderson also hit the arc top and stepped back to the top of the arc to make a difficult three-point shot, Curry was basketed by Ayton's nail board hat, Kuminga flew to defend Henderson, accidentally lost his body balance, and fell to the ground heavily. At the end of the first quarter, the Warriors led by two points at 24-22.
The Warriors have made old mistakes again, with too many mistakes and too little concentration against weak teams. Coming back in the second quarter, Podemski dribbled to the frontcourt, hit the ground and passed to Kuminga, who was running back, to complete a two-handed dunk, and then the two connected in the air again, and Kuminga cut the ball to complete the explosive dunk. Ayton caught the ball under the basket and made a strong shot to make it 2+1, Curry ran to receive the ball without the ball, and faced Henderson with three points and then hit it, and at halftime, the Warriors only led by 3 points at 49-46.
Today's Warriors are indeed a little lax, there have been 10 turnovers in the half, Curry has an average hand, 11 points, 4 boards, 1 assist and 1 block on 4-of-12 shooting, Kuminga contributed 11 points, 2 boards and 1 block, Wiggins 10 points, 4 boards and 1 steal, Ayton cut 15 points, 6 boards, 1 assist, 1 steal and 1 block, Henderson got 12 points, 2 boards, 6 assists and 2 steals.
Yibian fought again, the Warriors continued to pass the outside line, and finally Moody passed the ball back to the court, and there was another mistake, and the score was overtaken by the Trail Blazers. In the next round, Moody crossed Looney and smashed directly into the latter's shoulder, but fortunately was destroyed by the opponent out of bounds, which was really big. Henderson faced the defensive layup, was fanned by Wiggins, who assisted the defense, and Podzemski received the ball and counterattacked, and was also nailed by the opponent. With TJD scoring a basket, the third quarter ended, and the Warriors regained the lead at 75-74.
In the fourth quarter, Podemski's layup was again hit by Reese's hat, and Murray scored a layup to lead the Warriors by 3 points. Coming back from the timeout, Murray dumbled to Popemski and left three points in the open space to extend the Trail Blazers' lead to six points. At the critical moment, Curry received the ball on the wing and hit a three-point shot steadily, stopped the bleeding in time, and then began to take over the game, and the free-throw line position faced Ayton and hit again, and the Warriors tied the score. Then Curry bounced out to catch the ball for three points, scored 8 points in a single quarter, the Warriors led by 4 points, Paul hit a three-point shot at the top of the arc against Ayton, the Warriors led by 10 points, completely killing the game, and in the end, the Warriors defeated the Trail Blazers 100-92, with the same record as the Lakers, and is currently ranked 9th in the West.
In terms of statistics, on the Warriors' side, Curry stepped up at a critical moment and scored 6 points in a row to take over the game, with 22 points, 7 rebounds and 8 assists, Kuminga 19 points and 6 rebounds, Wiggins 15 points and 5 rebounds, Davis 10 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists, and Podemski 9 points and 4 assists. For the Trail Blazers, Ayton had 25 points and 11 rebounds, Henderson had 18 points and 12 assists, Walker had 17 points and 16 rebounds, and Murray had 14 points and 4 rebounds.