On the second-leg of a road back-to-back, the 16-29 Indiana Pacers were down Domantas Sabonis, Myles Turner, Malcolm Brogdon and Caris LeVert against the Golden State Warriors at San Francisco’s Chase Center.
While being down four of their core pieces, it didn’t seem to matter for the Pacers in an underdog performance on Thursday in the Bay Area.
After going up by eight before halftime, the Warriors couldn’t stretch a lead out against the Pacers early in the contest. As Golden State’s offense went quiet, Indiana took advantage to tie the game before the fourth quarter.
Keifer Sykes and the Pacers continued to hang around, matching the Warriors up and down the court in the fourth period. After Steph Curry willed the ice-cold Warriors to a three-point advantage with under 10 seconds remaining in the contest, Justin Holiday drilled a clutch 3-pointer to send the game into overtime after Golden State chose not to foul with the lead.
After the Warriors tallied the first five points in overtime, the Pacers notched 10 unanswered to hold a five-point lead of their own. An Andrew Wiggins alley-oop helped cut the Pacers’ lead to a single possession, but the Warriors couldn’t answer. Curry received an open look from beyond the arc to tie the game, but couldn’t land the jumper.
While the Warriors collected another chance to tie the contest late, an errant pass from Andre Iguodala that landed off the hands of Klay Thompson spoiled a chance at late heroics for Golden State. Despite being shorthanded, the Pacers hung on to hand the Warriors an ugly loss at home, 121-117.
Rookie Chris Duarte led the Pacers with 27 points on 10-of-16 shooting from the floor with seven boards and three assists in 39 minutes. Six other members of the Pacers notched double-figure scoring efforts.
Curry tallied a game-high 39 points on 12-of-27 shooting from the floor with eight assists and five boards in 44 minutes, but it wasn’t enough to carry Golden State on Thursday night.
Curry hit six of the Warriors’ nine 3-pointers on the evening. Thompson, Jordan Poole and Wiggins combined to go 1-of-18 from deep on the night. Cold shooting from long distance paired with 21 turnovers hampered Golden State’s effort to put the gritty Pacers away.
After the Pacers’ upset win in overtime against the Warriors, the NBA community on Twitter exploded with different reactions. Here’s a look at what fans and analysts were saying on Thursday night.
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