© Kyle Terada | 2019 Mar 31
The Warriors returned to form in their return home Sunday night, destroying the Charlotte Hornets 137-90 to take control of the top seed in the Western Conference. The 47-point win was Golden State’s most lopsided of the season. Here are three observations:
Warriors focused after frustrating loss
You can make a strong case that the Warriors’ overtime loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves was the most frustrating of the season. There have certainly been worse losses, (the 33 point home loss to the Celtics comes to mind), but none had the Warriors players, or head coach Steve Kerr, as angry postgame. That’s what happens when you feel you had a win taken away by the officials.
Two days later, the Warriors showed up to Oracle Arena focused, and blew the doors off the playoff hopeful Hornets in a game that was decided well before the buzzer sounded. Golden State nearly doubled Charlotte’s shooting percentage 60.2 to 35.7. They had a whopping 41 assists as a team.
Every starter was terrific. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson finished with 25 (8-of-14) and 24 (9-of-16) respectively, and paced the Warriors early, scoring 24 of Golden State’s 37 first quarter points. Draymond Green had an excellent floor game, notching nine assists and going 2-of-4 from downtown. Kevin Durant was again impossibly efficient, taking a career low five shots but making all of them. Durant embraced the role of distributer in a game where he didn’t need to score, also adding nine assists. Durant went 12-of-13 and 5-of-6 in respective games last week.
The win coincided with a Denver Nuggets home loss to the lottery-bound Washington Wizards, giving Golden State a full one-game lead atop the Western Conference with six games remaining for both teams. The win also clinched the Warriors’ fifth-straight Pacific Division title.
Cousins’ promising night ends early
Though it wasn’t close to defining the game like it did on Friday, Sunday’s game was affected by another questionable call. The recipient this time was DeMarcus Cousins, who was surprisingly tossed in the second quarter after his elbow caught the face of Hornets’ Willy Hernangomez during a boxout.
The officials ruled that Cousins’ contact was both “unnecessary and excessive,” the league’s requirement for the issuing of a Flagrant 2.
DeMarcus Cousins 2nd ejection of the season.
(Via @NBCSWarriors)
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) April 1, 2019
The ejection is Cousins’ second of the season. His first came back in October when he was tossed for arguing while wearing street clothes on the Golden State bench. Cousins was having a dominant stretch in the second quarter before being thrown out. The big man left the game with eight points and three blocks in 11 minutes.
Cook keeps cooking
Quinn Cook appears to be playing his way into the Warriors’ playoff rotation. Cook’s hot shooting continued on Sunday night, when the point guard dropped 21 points while going 5-of-6 from deep. Cook started the second quarter going 3-of-3 from 3-point range, which extended a three-game long streak of seven consecutive made 3s.
Cook has been much more decisive, and therefore effective, with his shot at the end of the season, embracing his role as a bench scorer as Shaun Livingston continues to be less of a threat. Livingston and Cook are the Warriors’ only two guards off the bench, and Steve Kerr would like to play both in the postseason to ease the burden on Curry and Thompson.
Rotations always shrink in the playoffs, and Kerr has shown he won’t play anyone he doesn’t feel he can trust, even in spot minutes. If the Cook of late is the same one who shows up in April and June, he’ll certainly be in the mix.