Playing on the second night of a back-to-back, a trip down to South Beach did not go as planned for the Warriors.
Golden State fell to the Miami Heat 105-102, snapping a seven-game winning streak and dropping their record to 38-7 — still an NBA best.
Trailing by two with 17.6 seconds left, the Warriors drew up a play for Kevin Durant in the corner, who raced to the basket for a soaring dunk to tie the game at 102. But with 10 seconds left and no timeouts, Dion Waiters casually strolled up the court and buried a three-pointer from the top of the key in Klay Thompson’s eye for the win.
The Warriors hit just 8 of their 30 three-pointers, went a dreadful 12/20 from the free throw line and the team had less than 30 assists — usually their bread and butter. Golden State trailed 77-73 at the end of the third quarter and by as many as 10 in the fourth quarter. They lacked their explosiveness and looked as if the Sunday 9 a.m. eastern start in Orlando may have trickled into Monday.
With time ticking away in the fourth quarter, the Warriors desperately started to find their mojo. Klay Thompson hit a three at the top of the key to cut the score to 98-93 with 2:26 left; Durant hit another to cut the lead to two with 1:47 left. Waiters would match that three on the very next Miami possession, fading away in Draymond Green’s face. It was one of Waiters’ best games of his career.
But the 5-point Heat lead vanished with under a minute to play. Green tossed a lob to Durant, who laid it home and Shaun Livingston finished a layup, cutting the score to 102-100 with 17.6 seconds left to play. Still, it wasn’t enough.
Miami’s three guard lineup had the Warriors in chase mode on defense. Waiters played spectacularly (33 points, 5 rebounds), as did Goran Dragic (19 points, 5 assists). Whiteside was actually held in check (10 points, 15 rebounds) two weeks after he posted a 20-20 game at Oracle Arena.
Zaza Pachulia, who earlier in the day told KNBR his hard foul on Russell Westbrook was payback for an elbow, had another rough foul whistled on him when he struck Luke Babbit in the face in the fourth quarter.
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Andre Iguodala (rest) sat out Monday’s game. The Warriors return to the floor Wednesday in Charlotte against the Hornets.
