OAKLAND — For the first time in 10 days, the Warriors were pushed to the brink in a basketball game, but they managed to escape with a 105-100 victory over the Atlanta Hawks, pushing their winning streak to 12 games.
Backed up against the ropes, Golden State used their defensive MVP to ignite Oracle Arena and bury the pesky Hawks.
It was a quiet night offensively for Draymond Green (4 points on 2/9 shooting) but he produced two key blocks with under 45 seconds left. On the first, Green stuffed a driving Dennis Schroder underneath the hoop and deflected the ball off the guard. The same thing happened on the very next Hawks possession. Kent Bazemore tried going after Draymond, and he got stuffed, with the ball rolling off his leg and out of bounds. Green soared through the air on both plays.
“Draymond is amazing,” Steve Kerr said afterwards. “He can literally guard anyone in the league, from Dwight Howard to Dennis Schroder.”
It was defensive of player of the year type of stuff from Green, who finished with 4 blocks. It wasn’t Kevin Durant, or Steph Curry, or Klay Thompson who made the biggest play in the biggest moment. The Warriors used their defensive stopper, Green, instead of offense to win the game. That’s how versatile this team is.
They used their bench, too. Andre Iguodala hit a tough jumper and slammed home a dunk to start the fourth quarter, while Shaun Livingston curled home a gorgeous left-handed finger-roll in traffic. The buckets were part of an 8-1 run early in the fourth and it pushed the lead to 88-81. Iguodala finished with 12 points and 5 assists, Livingston added 6 points.
Give the Hawks credit: they led for much of the second and third quarter, and did excellent job of disrupting the Warriors’ flow. Schroder cut the lead back down to 102-99 with 1:28 remaining in the game. He’s developing into a star player and finished with 24 points.
“We haven’t felt pressure for awhile, since Milwaukee,” Kerr said. “It was good for us to feel the pressure late in a game.”
The Warriors will be lukewarm about the win because they didn’t really look themselves offensively. The constant ball movement and surges of scoring were not present on Monday — mostly because of Atlanta’s harassing defense.
Ian Clark hit a buzzer-beater at the end of the third quarter, lessening Atlanta’s lead to 81-80 and flipping the momentum, before Iguodala and Livingston went off. Clark finished with 8 points on 3/6 shooting.
Durant scored 25 points and secured 14 rebounds — his second-highest total this season. Thompson finished with 20 points, firing off 11 of those in the first quarter. Curry poured in 25 points and hit 9/11 of his free throws. It’s the eighth time this season all three stars have reached the 20-point threshold.
The Warriors will have two days of rest before hosting James Harden and the Houston Rockets Thursday in Oakland.
