Without Domantas Sabonis, Caris LeVert and Malcolm Brogdon the Indiana Pacers in back to back you take the luxury of battere i Golden State Warriors in overtime for 121-117 at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
LeVert and Sabonis aren’t playing 24 hours after beating the Lakers at Crypto.com Arena, coach Rick Carlisle launches in basic quintet Torrey Craig, Goga Bitadze e Keifer Sykes next to Justin Holiday e Chris Duarte, and find a great rookie game Isaiah Jackson that in the final of regular time you need the assist for the triple of the draw at 110-110 to Holiday.
A surprise victory for the Pacers, who before the “brace” against Lakers and Warriors had won only 3 away games this season. For Golden State, again senza Draymond Green, Thursday’s defeat against such a remodeled team is a defeat that could cost him in the race to the top of the Western Conference.
Stephen Curry is the good news, the number 30 of the Warriors returns to his levels in attack with 39 points, 5 rebounds and 8 assists, with 12 out of 27 shooting. However, neither Andrew Wiggins, nor Jordan Poole nor Klay Thompson are able to follow Steph in attack: Poole scores only 5 points in 25 minutes, in 23 minutes, Thompson fails to score from three and closes with 12 points and 6 out of 17 shooting.
As against the Lakers, Indiana arrives at first advantage only in third fourth with a shot from three of Justin Holiday who makes 68-66 with 8 minutes to play, and forces coach Steve Kerr to timeout.
From there, the game stays on absolute balance. In the fourth quarter Gary Payton II crushes the +5 (94-89) but the Pacers return again, and 5 minutes from the end they are ahead 100-96 again on Holiday’s basket. Stephen Curry from three cancels the distance but Isaiah Jackson he answers by crushing the alley-oop of the usual Holiday (106-101) three minutes before the final siren, taking advantage of the few centimeters in the area for Golden State.
With 2 minutes left, the two teams are on 106 all, Indiana scores only one point but with 9.4 seconds to play has the ball of the equalizer: Isaiah Jackson receives the Justin Holiday’s emergency callback, who then is very good at freeing himself for the shot behind Curry, who for a moment loses the marking. The veteran ex Bulls gets up from three points and draws the match on 110-110.
To the additional, the Warriors touch the +5 (115-110) with a triple from Andrew Wiggins, but i Pacers they don’t give up and place a partial 10-0 with Duarte and above all Keifer Sykes that marks 5 points in a row and guides his team to a truly odd victory.
The former Olimpia Milano and Panathinaikos scores 10 points with 4 out of 12 shooting, Chris Duarte is the top scorer for Indiana with 27 points in 39 minutes, 7 men in double figures for the Pacers with Bitadze, Craig, Holiday and Jeremy Lamb off the bench.
