DALLAS (AP) – A day after the Dallas Mavericks got the bad news that backup point guard and team sparkplug J.J. Barea was lost for the season, Stephen Curry brought more bad news – in the form of 11 3-pointers.
Curry scored 48 points and tied his season high for 3s in a game as the Golden State Warriors held off the Mavericks 119-114 on Sunday night.
“We just couldn’t get Curry under control,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “He was brilliant tonight.”
Curry’s 11 3s were the most ever by a Mavericks opponent. The last one was his most important, snapping a 114-all tie with 42 seconds to play. Both Curry and Warriors coach Steve Kerr credited Kevin Durant for switching play calls to get Curry shots rather than taking shots of his own.
“That was just (Durant) taking the initiative, knowing that I had a hot hand going,” Curry said. “Call it a decoy in terms of him being in the action, but allowing me to work. The way they were defending us, it just made sense tonight.”
Durant added 28 points for the Warriors, and Klay Thompson had nine of his 16 in the fourth quarter as the Warriors received a tough test from a Dallas team playing without its top two point guards, Dennis Smith Jr. and Barea.
Luka Doncic scored 26 points for Dallas and Harrison Barnes had 22. Jalen Brunson had 12 off the bench in 30 minutes, in place of the injured point guards.
After Curry’s shot, Draymond Green blocked Brunson’s drive at the other end and secured the loose ball. The Mavericks forced a miss, but Barnes turned the ball over in the frontcourt with 5 seconds left. Curry sealed the game with free throws.
“He had mismatches,” Durant said. “He was making shots over everybody tonight, so why run plays? Just give him the ball.”
Dallas missed its final eight shots from the field.
MAGIC 116, ROCKETS 109
In Orlando, Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon each scored 22 points and Orlando took advantage of James Harden’s awful 3-point shooting to beat Houston.
Harden scored 38 points to push his run of 30-point games to 16, but was 1 of 17 from 3-point range to tie Damon Stoudamire’s NBA record for misses in a game. Stoudamire was 5 for 21 from 3-point range for Portland against Golden State on April 15, 2005.
