Soaring Curry explodes for 51 to sink Mavs

ORACLE ARENA — Coming back from a 22-point deficit, the Warriors shut down the Mavericks 128-114 behind a 51-point season-high showcase from Stephen Curry.

Third quarters have been lucky for the Warriors this season — lets not forget what Klay Thompson did — and Curry’s 26-point performance in the third frame of Wednesday night’s game pushed Golden State to its 39th win of the season.

For the first seven minutes of the game the Warriors had nothing going. They were held to just four points and 22 percent shooting, committing five turnovers that Dallas turned into 11 points.

With zero interior defense (22 Dallas points in the paint), the Warriors headed into the second quarter facing a 17-point deficit after allowing the Mavericks to score the most points in a single quarter by a Warriors opponent this season.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told SFBay he didn’t emotionally prepare his team for a trap game against Dallas and said he told his team to continue to fight:

“I just told them that its such a long game and we needed to settle in. We had to fix some things defensively we were obviously rattled…I did not have our guys ready to play tonight. Dallas was waiting here last night, we were winning in Sacramento, we beat them in Dallas last month. We let our guard down and that was partly my fault.”

Even though Curry started to get hot — scoring 11 of his 51 points in the opening frame — it was all Dallas.

After being down by as many as 22 points, the Warriors second unit, supported by Draymond Green, let their defense do the talking. The reserves clamped down, energizing through the quickness of Leandro Barbosa, the defense of Green and Andre Iguodala and the offensive effort from Marreese Speights.

Speights said after a dark huddle between the first and second quarter, the reserves knew they needed to bring energy back into the game:

“We’ve never gotten down like that before so we know, the second group, when we go in there we’ve got to try to bring energy and get stops and easy offensive plays. So we went out there and played hard and got back in the game.”

With the Mavericks lead cut to just four points at the halfway point, the Warriors were looking to keep the momentum in the second half. Then Curry let loose.

Curry scored 26 points on 8-of-11 shooting including six three pointers and finished the night with 51 points, the most he’s scored at home in his NBA career and just three points shy of his career-high scoring effort.

“I’ve never shot like that at Oracle, all my crazy games have been on the road. It’s special to have one at home in front of a crowd that’s been so faithful for a long time. Obviously we got the win too, against a great team.”

Though Chandler Parsons and Devin Harris shot well in the third and Dallas was able to keep the game tied up late in the third, they were no match for Curry, who’s shooting continued into the final frame.

Curry scored 10 more points in the fourth quarter as the Warriors outscored the Mavericks 27-16 to finish out their last home-game before the All-Star break.

The Warriors, now 39-8, head out on a four game road trip starting in Atlanta Friday and hitting New York, Phillidelphia and Minnesota before breaking for NBA All-Star week.

Notes

The Warriors improved to 23-2 at home, an NBA best and is 25-7 against the West, the best mark by a Western team against its own conference this season. … The Warriors hit a season-high 19 three-pointers. … The Warriors earned their NBA-leading 30th double-digit victory of the season, their most since recording a franchise-best 32 such games in the 1975-76 season. … Stephen Curry finished with a season-high 51 points, joining Klay Thompson to become the first teammates to both score 50-plus points in the same season since 1994-95, when Dallas and Phoenix had two players accomplish the feat. … Draymond Green posted team-highs in rebound (10) and assists (6), his 12th game with double-digit rebounds this season. … Leandro Barbosa scored 14 points, his fourth-straight game in double figures.

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