Slow and sloppy for three quarters, the Golden State Warriors finally came to life in the fourth quarter on Thursday night.
Playing against one of the NBA’s worst teams, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Warriors looked lost until the very end, when Steph Curry turned it on and Kevon Looney came off the bench to lift the Warriors to a 100-92 win.
“It was a tough night for us, we did not execute very well,” head coach Steve Kerr told reporters in Portland. “But we pulled through in the end.”
Looney hasn’t played much this season and was a healthy scratch on Tuesday night, but when the Warriors were getting buried by Portland’s second-chance points, Looney entered the game and turned things around.
“Loon just saved us, like he has dozens of times in his career here,” Kerr said. “He’s kind of been on the outside of the rotation for the last six weeks or so. And he always stays ready. He came in and changed the game. We were really getting bullied on the glass early in the game. I thought he came in and established the tone inside.”
The win moved the Warriors one step ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers as the No. 9 seed in the Western Conference. If the Warriors can win their final two games and the Sacramento Kings lose at least one, the Warriors could get as high as the No. 8 seed.
Kerr opted to play without Draymond Green (bruised knee), Klay Thompson (calf tightness) and Gary Payton II (calf tightness), resting some of his best players against a Trail Blazers (21-58) squad that didn’t expect to be much of a threat. All three players are expected to play on Friday.
Without them, Kerr went with a lineup of Curry, Chris Paul, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jonathan Kuminga and Andrew Wiggins.
The first quarter was all about Jackson-Davis, as the rookie big man was a stat-stuffer at both ends of the floor, clogging the paint and making things difficult for Portland to get inside. But on offense, the Warriors couldn’t find a rhythm.
They committed five turnovers in the first four minutes of the game and the Trail Blazers capitalized, a theme throughout the night. At one point the Trailblazers had 15 points off turnovers to the Warriors’ zero.
It wasn’t until Brandin Podziemski checked in midway through the first that they started to find a rhythm. He locked down a precious defensive rebound and took it the other way, then split two defenders with a slippery pass to feed Kuminga for a slam. On the next possession, he found space inside and scored on a layup to complete a 14-2 run as the Warriors finished the quarter with a 24-22 lead.
After a tightly contested second quarter, the Warriors shot the ball well enough to get into halftime with a 49-46 lead, despite having 15 fewer field goal attempts while getting dominated by Portland in offensive rebounds.
“Box outs and rebounds,” Podziemski told reporters. “We were able to limit that slowly but surely in the second half.”
With 9:09 left to play they found themselves trailing, 85-79.
For the next 6 minutes, 37 seconds, the Trail Blazers didn’t hit a single field goal. Looney took over for Jackson-Davis and finally put a stop to all Portland’s second-chance opportunities. Podziemski played tight defense on Scoot Henderson. And Curry pulled it all together with his typical fourth-quarter dominance.
At one point, Curry, Looney and Podziemski seemed to be playing three against five. When Curry couldn’t get loose on the perimeter, he’d feed Podziemski, who was more eager to drive and look for space than shoot the rock himself. He drove inside, turned around and fired the ball right back out to Curry, who knocked down a 3-pointer.
The next possession, Curry worked around back-to-back Looney screens until Looney got open, then he fed him for an easy layup.
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Then came the dagger, when Looney collected a steal in his own end and fed it to Curry, who managed the open floor perfectly and found Podziemski for an and-one bucket that sank the Trail Blazers for good.
In those majestic 6 minutes, 37 seconds, the Warriors out-scored Portland 17-1.
“I thought the two key guys were Loon and Brandin,” Kerr said.
They finished the game on a 21-7 run and avoided what could’ve been a deflating loss with just three days left in the regular season.
“We showed resilience,” Podziemski said. “Earlier in the season it was flipped, where we were playing really well in the start and then we gave it up. It’s just about finding ways to win.”
Curry finished with 22 points despite shooting just 5-for-16 from 3-point range. He added seven rebounds, eight assists, a steal and two blocks.
Looney (plus-19) and Podziemski (plus-13) led the team in plus-minus, while Looney added nine points, a team-high 11 rebounds, two steals and four blocks.
“I knew with Draymond, Klay, GP being out, that everyone had to step up,” Looney said on the NBC Sports broadcast after the game. “I tried to make sure I stayed ready, trying to make a difference. We knew this was an important game. We knew it’d be tough playing without our guys. But we got it done.”
Their late-game heroics ensured the “Road Warriors” finished their away portion of the regular season schedule with a remarkable 25-16 record on the road, including 17 wins in their last 21 games away from Chase Center.
They return home Friday night to host the New Orleans Pelicans (47-32).