ALAMEDA, Calif. — The Golden State Warriors rebounded from the Boston Celtics loss and restarted their home-court winning streak by beating the Portland Trail Blazers 136-111 on April 3 in front of a 19,596 sellout crowd.
Stephen Curry had 39 points, six rebounds and seven assists and Draymond Green added 22 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists for the Warriors (69-8). With the victory, Golden State became the fourth team in NBA history to win 69 games in a season.
The win also moves the Warriors away from the 109-106 loss at home against the Boston Celtics on April 1. The Celtics successfully stopped a 54-game home streak, which was part of a 36-game stretch this season. Curry said the Warriors were over the loss no sooner than the game was over.
“Obviously, we’re going to learn from what happened, but we’ve done some great things this year and hopefully we can continue to do some great things,” Curry said. “That negative energy of over analyzing situations or kind of mild panic is not necessary right now. We got a pretty good focus as a unit of how to bounce back and staying true to who we are.”
Damian Lillard had 38 points, three rebounds, and four assists for the Trail Blazers (41-37), who will play the Sacramento Kings on the road on April 5. Maurice Harkless chipped in 15 points and eight rebounds for Portland. The Trail Blazers led by 11 points in the first half until Golden State started playing Warriors basketball.
The Trail Blazers’ last lead was 46-44 in the second quarter. The Warriors turned up the heat by outscoring Portland 17-10 to end the 1st half leading 63-56. Curry had 20 points in the first half.
To show Portland just how serious they were in not losing consecutive home games, the Warriors bust the clock to end the third leading 101-89. The Warriors were 15-for-21 shooting from the floor at 71.4 percent while the Trail Blazers shot 12-for-19, 63.2 percent.
Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts pointed to the first waning minutes of the third quarter as to Portland’s down fall that worked into the Warriors favor.
“It was a combination of poor offense and poor defense for two and a half minutes,” Stotts said. “We had a couple of turnovers, didn’t get back in transition, and had some breakdowns. That’s the thing about Golden State. They can put on a quick run in a short time and that’s what they did.”
The Warriors put the game out of reach after Leandro Barbosa’s 3-point shot gave Golden State a 128-107 lead with 3:09 left to play in the game. The Trail Blazers never got closer than 10 point in the fourth quarter.
Curry had 34 points for the Warriors and Lillard was sitting on 32 points for Portland before the final bell. Both players didn’t see much of the fourth either.
“They’ve lost eight games for a reason,” said Lillard, who is from the city of Oakland. “They are explosive offensively and that’s kind of what happened there in the last couple of minutes (in the third). They just exploded on us and ran off a bunch of points.”
Klay Thompson finished with 21 points, three rebounds, and three assists for the Warriors, who will play the Minnesota Timberwolves on April 5 at home.
W’s NOTES: Andrew Bogut (ribs) and Andre Iguodala (left ankle sprain) sat out the game. Festus Ezeli returned from a 31-game absence dealing with a left knee. He made his 12th start of the season, making two points and grabbing three rebounds in nine minutes.
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By Antonio R. Harvey
OBSERVER Staff Writer