ORACLE ARENA — The Warriors started Wednesday night with an ideal first half against Memphis.
But Golden State blew a 12-point lead in the third quarter, barely stayed in the game to finish out regulation time and fell apart in overtime.
The Grizzlies extended their winning streak against Golden State to 11 Wednesday night with a 88-81 victory.
They not only left the Warriors wondering why they haven’t been able to prevail over Memphis since 2010, but also snapped the Warriors perfect home record on the season and finished their road trip off with a sweep of all four California teams.
Mike Conley, 19 points, said the Grizzlies’ recent success has brought confidence into the Memphis locker room and is because of effort on the defensive end:
“We hang our hat on defense and this whole road trip we’ve been getting stops and have been holding teams to low numbers.”
Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph ended the night with a team high 21 points, 12 rebounds and zero turnovers, something he says the team has been working on:
“That’s what we’ve been focusing on. That is what we have to do. Tonight we took care of the ball.”
With Stephen Curry sitting out with a concussion and center Jermaine O’Neal sidelined with a right groin sprain, the Warriors tried to fill in the offensive gaps with early minutes from Draymond Green, Kent Bazemore and Ognjen Kuzmic.
Kuzmic hit his hand against the backboard in the last play of the first quarter and headed to the locker room with a broken pinky finger, leaving the Warriors hurting even more at the center position.
But the Warriors bench was still able to help maintain a 44-34 lead heading into halftime.
Coming out of intermission, the Grizzlies forced Golden State to slow down. That’s where Mark Jackson was disappointed the game was lost:
“In situations when the game gets tight, the natural instinct is to slow it down and get a good one. Those are the situations where you have to push it even more.”
Trailing by one point at 73-72, Klay Thompson, who finished the night with 21 points, headed to the free throw line with 3:34 left in regulation.
Thompson hit his first shot to tie the game and missed the second shot, but flew down the lane securing his own rebound and driving in for a layup to take a 75-73 lead.
Marc Gasol hit two more free throws for the Grizzlies and the score stayed locked at 75-75 pushing the teams into overtime.
Golden State quickly fell behind and went 3-of-8 from the field during the extra time. The final attempt at scoring came with seven seconds left as Harrison Barnes drove to the basket for a wide open lay up that he wildly missed.
Golden State is now 0-2 without Curry this season, but Jackson wouldn’t let that stand as an excuse for the Warriors losing:
“Even without Steph we feel we are more than capable of leaving here with a victory…just very disappointed right now.”
The Warriors, now 8-4 overall, head to Los Angeles to play the Lakers on Friday before returning home to play Portland on Saturday.
The Warriors lost at Oracle Arena for the first time this season (5-1), snapping a six-game home winning streak that dated back to last season. … The Grizzlies are now the third team ever to sweep the four California teams in a road trip. … All five Warriors starters played at least 42 minutes. Andre Iguodala tallied seven points and a Warriors season-high 14 assists in 48 minutes. … Andrew Bogut recorded his second double-double of the year, tallying 12 points and a season-high 14 rebounds.
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Last modified November 21, 2013 10:19 pm
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