(Basketball news) The Golden State Warriors got back to winning ways after an emphatic win over the Oklahoma City Thunders 141-114. For the Warriors, Thompson scored 42 points with a season-high 12 3-pointers, Jordan Poole added 21 points and career-best 12 assists starting in Curry’s place as Andrew Wiggins scored 18 points. For the Thunder, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 20 points, Aaron Wiggins added 19 points and Tre Mann had 18 points off the bench as Josh Giddey contributed 15 points, eight assists and seven rebounds as Oklahoma City struggled in the opener of a road back-to-back coming off a franchise-record 153 points. The Warriors improved their record to 28-26.
”It was a beautiful game to watch him play,” Draymond Green said of Thompson.”We needed it. It’s been a while since we had a blowout win. It’s good to get this one, especially the first game with Steph out. It was good to start off on this foot and try to create some momentum.”
”This is a confidence booster for sure to play without him, but to see the performance of the team, amazing individual performances we got,” coach Steve Kerr said. ”It was a feel-good game for a lot of people and that just really fuels everybody. Hopefully we can keep that going.”
”That was fun, that was probably the most fun I’ve had watching our team all year,” Kerr said.
The Milwaukee Bucks won their 8th straight match as they comfortably beat the Portland Traliblazers 127-108. For the Bucks, Brook Lopez scored 27 points to get to 15,000 career points as Giannis Antetokounmpo had 24 points and 13 rebounds. For the TrailBlazers, Damian Lillard led the scoring with 28 points as he averaged 38.3 points and 6.8 assists last week for his second straight POTW honor, while Antetokounmpo averaged 41 points and 17.3 rebounds last week and wasn’t considered for the award. Simons added 21 points as Josh Hart scored 14 points which was enough to stop the rout. The Bucks improved their record to 37-17 as they moved to 2nd in the Eastern Conference table.
”I have a long way to go, a long time to still play. I’m just enjoying it and I want to keep getting better, keep being an effective player out there, being the best player I could be,” said Lopez, who is in his 14th season. ”I’m lucky that there are people that are out there trying to help me, trying to make me better and put me in that position.”
”They made some adjustments to their defense this year, to be honest with you,” Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said. ”They used to give up like the best 3s in the league because of that drop coverage. Not this year. I’ve got to give them a ton of credit. (Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer) has done a really good job. They’re still a really dominant defense but they’re not giving up as many 3s, so you’ve got to work even harder to get those looks.”
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