Golden State showed composure and beat Sacramento
The Golden State Warriors took a very big step toward the NBA Western Conference Semifinals. The reigning league champions crushed the Sacramento Kings' resistance 123:116 (33:36, 27:20, 39:34, 24:26) in Game #5 of the quarterfinal series and now have a 3-2 lead.
Thus, the "Warriors", who trailed 0-2 to the "Kings", have already taken control of the series and will have the chance to close it on their home field on Saturday morning. The game got off to a strong start for host Sacramento, which jumped out to an early 10-point lead at 9:31 p.m. on two 3-pointers by star De'Aaron Fox, who was playing with a broken index finger on his shooting left hand.
However, the "warriors" caught up with their opponent and reduced the distance to three points through Draymond Green and Steph Curry for 33:36 at the end of the quarter. In the second part, the champions achieved a complete turnaround in the result, leading with 60:56 at halftime thanks to new strong performances by Draymond, who, in the second consecutive match of the series, came off the bench.
After the break, the Warriors maintained their fragile lead, which reached nine points at the very end of the third period at 99:90. Sacramento didn't give up and managed to make the final minutes of the match extremely interesting, after cutting the deficit to just one point on several occasions.
At every critical moment, however, the Golden State team managed to pull out a hidden trump card, and through successful offensive actions by Steph, Wiggins, Draymond and Klay, the guests kept their lead, not allowing them to catch up in any of the final moments of the match.
Steph Curry finished with 31 points and 8 assists for Golden State. Klay Thompson added 25 points, Draymond Green had 21 points and 7 assists off the bench, and Jordan Poole had 10 points and 6 assists. Center Kevon Looney was also a key contributor, finishing with 4 points, 22 rebounds and 7 assists.
Despite a broken finger, De'Aaron Fox led the Kings with 24 points, 7 rebounds and 9 assists. Domantas Sabonis and Malik Monk each scored 21, Harrison Barnes added 13 points and Keegan Murray and Davion Mitchell added 10 each.
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