Indiana outpace Golden State in the 4th quarter, beat Warriors 104-95
By Tom Macasaet PhilBoxing.com Fri, 15 Jan 2021
January 12, 2021 in San Francisco, California.
Entering the last game of a 7-game home stand after winning two straight games, the Warriors hoped to grab their third win in a row with an Oladipo-less Indiana Pacer team.
The Indiana Pacers’ star player has not played back-to-back games since returning from the knee injury he suffered back in January of 2019, forcing him to sit out the rest of the 2019-20 season.
The Warriors were also without a key secondary player in Eric Paschall who was out on the NBA’s COVID-19 protocol. The other half of the great Splash Brothers duo Klay Thompson was in attendance to support his team courtside.
These two facts seemingly gave the Warriors an added advantage against a formidable team only half a game back from first place in the Eastern Conference.
The improved defense of the new, young Warrior line up has been rapidly improving which has played a huge part in getting great wins to start off the season.
The growing storyline for the Warriors is their new young big man---James Wiseman. The 2020 first-round pick of the Warriors has been taken under the wing of Draymond Green to start his NBA career. Because of that, he is learning all the intricacies of the fast-paced NBA game from Green, thus, becoming an integral part of the Warrior offense.
Green giving pointers to Wiseman.
Tonight's game against the Indiana Pacers would be a huge learning experience for the young big man from the University of Memphis. The lesson: you're much more beneficial to the team on the floor than you are sitting on the bench.
The big man had a great start, scoring the first points for the team in a very slow Warrior start. How slow, you ask? To start the game, Steph Curry went without a score for more than 7 minutes, then went on to miss back-to-back free throws. But the young, tenacious defense of the Warriors kept them close, forcing the Pacers to miss shots, sending the rock in the other direction.
The Pacers had a great two-part game plan against the Warriors: shut down Curry and neutralize the center. They went 2-for-2 on that tonight.
Curry struggled to get into rhythm all night, finishing with 20 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists. He shot 7-17 for 3 pointers and failed to sink critical shots in the last two and a half minutes of the game against the Indiana Pacers “box-and-1” defense.
The Warriors managed to stay ahead of the Pacers through most of the game, but fell short of holding them off when they couldn’t get the stops they needed against the likes of Domantas Sabonis, who scored 18 points for the game and grabbed 14 rebounds.
But Sabonis’s real contribution was helping get James Wiseman off the floor by getting the young rookie to commit his fourth personal foul in the second quarter and eventually to foul out of the game with 6:25 left in the third quarter.
Sabonis, on the other hand, has been averaging close to 38 minutes a game for the Pacers. That made it much easier for the Indiana big man to grab rebounds and give the Pacers second chance points to chisel away at the Warrior lead.
The improved defense and persistent offense by the Pacers kept the Warriors to just 38 points in the second half of the game, turning the tables from the first half and helping them secure a comeback win on the Warrior’s home court.
Player Notes: Andrew Wiggins obtained a career-best 5 blocks with his constantly improving defense, as well as scoring 22 points in the game. Kelly Oubre Jr. continues to show his worth on the team by adding 17 points to the team total. Miles Turner had a great night for the Pacers with a team-leading 22 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocks.
