By Diamond Leung / San Jose Mercury News
DENVER—The Golden State Warriors have reached 15-0, equaling the record for the best start in National Basketball Association (NBA) history, after dispatching the Denver Nuggets, 118-105, on Sunday.
Klay Thompson scored 21 points, and Stephen Curry needed to play only three quarters and scored a season-low 19 points, as the Warriors matched the 15-game winning streak the Houston Rockets started with in 1993 and the Washington Capitols had in 1948.
The Warriors can break the record on Tuesday at Oracle Arena with a win against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Warriors, during the streak, have weathered the absence of Steve Kerr, a six-game stretch where Andrew Bogut was sidelined, and opponents giving their best efforts against the defending champions.
Against the Nuggets, the Warriors fought off the altitude and defensive complacency to pull away for the win.
Facing the second-worst three-point defense in the league, Golden State did what it does best and went 15 for 29 from beyond the arc, as Thompson hit four of them. It didn’t help the Nuggets that leading rebounder Kenneth Faried missed the game with a sprained ankle.
The Warriors led by six points in the third quarter, before Curry capped a 7-0 run with a three-pointer that came fortuitously after a missed dunk by Festus Ezeli. Harrison Barnes threw down a vicious one-handed dunk as part of the run.
The Warriors pushed the lead to 19 points in the fourth with Curry and the starters on the bench.
The historical moment was on the minds of both teams before the game. The Warriors openly discussed how they would go for the record. Nuggets Coach Michael Malone noted how ESPN made a late decision to broadcast the game.
“I liken it to we’re the Washington Generals playing the Globetrotters,” said Malone, the former Warriors assistant coach. “Nobody’s here to see us. And we’re OK with that.”
Curry capped a 9-0 run in the first with a three-pointer, and a steal and lay-up on the other end to give the Warriors a 22-15 lead.
Andre Iguodala had a steal, dribbled behind his back and passed for an alley-oop dunk to Shaun Livingston to extend the lead to 34-23 at the end of the first.
The Nuggets would get back into the game. They hit their first six shots of the second against the Warriors’ substitutes and then took a 51-50 lead after Curry and the starters checked back into the game.
But the Warriors responded immediately with an 8-0 run as Thompson scored five straight points and assisted on Barnes’ three-pointer. Thompson followed with back-to-back three-pointers, as the Warriors led 64-58 at halftime.
In the other games on Sunday, it was Toronto 91, Los Angeles Clippers 80; New Orleans 122, Phoenix 116; Brooklyn 111, Boston 101; Oklahoma City 117, Dallas 114; and Portland 107, LA Lakers 93.
In Oklahoma City Russell Westbrook had 31 points and 11 assists, hitting two key baskets in the final 63 seconds, and Oklahoma City rallied from a double-digit third-quarter deficit to snap Dallas’s six-game winning streak.
Serge Ibaka had 16 points, nine rebounds and a key late blocked shot for Oklahoma City, which was without star forward Kevin Durant (injured hamstring) for the sixth straight game.
Westbrook broke a 113-113 tie with a jumper with 1:03 left. Zaza Pachulia made one-of-two from the free-throw line to pull the Mavericks within a point before Westbrook’s 18-foot jumper with 24 seconds left capped the scoring.
Deron Williams led Dallas with 20 points, but missed an 18-footer and had his lay-up attempt blocked by Ibaka on consecutive possessions, and Wesley Mathews’s last-second off-balance heave from three-point range came nowhere close to the basket.
In New Orleans Anthony Davis capped a 32-point, 19-rebound performance with a tiebreaking three in the final minute to lead New Orleans past Phoenix.
Davis, whose rebound total set a season high, also blocked four shots and had two steals. His last block came with 22 seconds left, when he tapped Mirza Teletovic’s three-point attempt from the right corner offline. The ball fell to Pelicans guard Ish Smith, and New Orleans held on from there.
Ryan Anderson, who scored 30 in each of his previous two games, had 29 points for New Orleans. Eric Gordon added 20 points, while Smith had 17 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.
Eric Bledsoe scored 29 points for Phoenix, which lost despite hitting 17 three-pointers. Brandon Knight had 19 points, but missed 13 of 18 shots.
Brook Lopez had 23 points and 10 rebounds, Jarrett Jack scored 13 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter and Brooklyn earned a split of the teams’ home-and-home series.
Two nights after the Celtics won by 25 in Boston, the Nets dominated the second quarter that was pivotal in both games and held on after blowing most of a 22-point lead, their largest of the season.
Joe Johnson added 17 points for the Nets, who have won two in a row at home, where they have barely played this season.
Isaiah Thomas and Avery Bradley each scored 27 points for the Celtics.
Image credits: AP