With dad Dell watching live, Stephen Curry hit 11 3-pointers and scored 39 points in three quarters, coming back with vengeance from a one-game absence and leading the Golden State Warriors to a 126-111 blowout of his hometown Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday night. Klay Thompson added 29 points, matched his career high with eight assists and Kevin Durant had 18 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for the NBA-leading Warriors (42-7).
Curry recorded his fifth career game with at least 11 3s, shot 14 for 20 and 11 of 15 from long range and dished out eight assists facing Charlotte for the second time in a week. Frank Kaminsky scored 24 points off the bench for Hornets, which lost its sixth in a row overall and ninth straight on the road.
CAVALIERS 125, TIMBERWOLVES 97
LeBron James scored 27 points while Kyrie Irving had 14 and a career-high 14 assists as Cleveland Cavaliers, coming off a losing record in January, defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves. Cleveland, which went 7-8 last month, began February looking like the defending NBA champion. Cavaliers held a three-point halftime lead and took control midway through the third quarter. James’ three-point play gave the Cavaliers a 90-70 lead.
Cleveland All-Star forward Kevin Love missed his second straight game because of back spasms, but Cavaliers had five players in double figures in scoring. James was 11 of 14 from the field, and Irving scored 14 points. Kyle Korver, who has struggled since being acquired from Atlanta last month, scored 20 points, going 8 of 11 from the field and hitting four 3-pointers. Tristan Thompson had 18 points and 14 rebounds.
Karl-Anthony Towns led Minnesota with 26 points and Andrew Wiggins added 23 for Timberwolves, which won five of six to finish January.
CELTICS 109, RAPTORS 104
Isaiah Thomas scored 19 of his 44 points in the final quarter to lift the Boston Celtics over the Toronto Raptors in a showdown for first place in the Atlantic Division. It was the fifth straight win for Boston, which moved one game ahead of the Raptors in the division and holds the Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed.
Kyle Lowry led Toronto with 32 points, former Celtic Jared Sullinger had 13 and Norman Powell added 12. Raptors has lost seven of nine. In a final quarter that rivalled playoff intensity, Celtics forward Jaylen Brown was fouled on a breakaway attempt and walked over and had words with Lowry before a few others player joined in and had to be separated by the officials. Boston’s Terry Rozier and the Raptors’ DeMarre Carroll were each given a technical.
HEAT 116, HAWKS 93
Goran Dragic scored 27 points, Dion Waiters added 20 and the Miami Heat pushed the NBA’s longest current winning streak to nine games by easing past the Atlanta Hawks. Kent Bazemore scored 14 and Dennis Schroder scored 12 for the Hawks.
Atlanta’s Taurean Prince was ejected midway through the fourth quarter for pulling Whiteside down from behind and being assessed a flagrant-2. James Johnson retaliated in Whiteside’s defense, and was ejected after getting a technical.
PISTONS 118, PELICANS 98
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope scored a career-high 38 points, leading the Detroit Pistons over the New Orleans Pelicans. Tobias Harris added 19 points and Andre Drummond 17 for the Pistons, who ended an eight-game losing streak to New Orleans. Detroit had lost three in a row overall.
New Orleans blew a nine-point lead in the third quarter and lost its third straight and fourth in five games. Anthony Davis, who scored a career-high 59 points last February at Detroit, had 31 points and 12 rebounds, while Jrue Holliday added 22 points and 11 assists.
KNICKS 95, NETS 90
Kristaps Porzingis had 19 points and 12 rebounds, and joined a group of mostly substitutes who led a big fourth-quarter turnaround that carried the New York Knicks over the Brooklyn Nets. Carmelo Anthony had 15 points for the Knicks, but he was on the bench for the entire fourth quarter after shooting 6 for 22 from the field. Instead, the Knicks rallied behind Willy Hernangomez, who had 16 points and 16 rebounds, and Sasha Vujacic, who made team history by converting a pair of four-point plays in the game.
The only other starter on the floor for the comeback was Brandon Jennings and he was only starting because point guard Derrick Rose remained out with a sprained ankle.
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson scored 16 for Nets, which lost its seventh straight and fell to 0-9 against Atlantic Division opponent this season.
PACERS 98, MAGIC 88
C. J. Miles scored 16 points, Glenn Robinson III added 14 and the Indiana Pacers held on to beat the Orlando Magic. Pacers used its smaller lineup and timely 3-point shooting to keep the struggling Magic from rallying. Orlando didn’t have an answer for Miles’ 3-point shooting, including a trey that pushed the lead to 96-88 in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter. Orlando moved within five points a few times in the final period but could not come any closer.
Jeff Teague had 13 points and nine assists and was 8 for 9 from the free-throw line to join six Pacers in double figures. Serge Ibaka led five Magic players in double figures with 20 points. Pacers has defeated its former coach Frank Vogel four straight times this season.
MAVERICKS 113, 76ERS 95
Seth Curry scored 22 points, Salah Mejri had 16 points and a career-high 17 rebounds and the Dallas Mavericks beat the Philadelphia 76ers for its fifth win in six games. Mejri played 21 minutes at centre with Andrew Bogut out of action and helped Dallas, the NBA’s worst-rebounding team, set a season high for boards and outrebound the Sixers 51-39. He scored 10 points, all on dunks, early in the fourth quarter to help the Mavericks lead by 22.
Jahlil Okafor led the 76ers with 16 points, and Ersan Ilyasova added 13. Philadelphia played without starters Robert Covington (bruised right hand) and Joel Embiid (left knee contusion).
CLIPPERS 124, SUNS 114
Blake Griffin scored 29 points and Los Angeles Clippers bounced back from a humiliating 46-point loss at Golden State to beat the Phoenix Suns. The victory over the team with the worst record in the West left Los Angeles 2-4 since Chris Paul went down with a torn left thumb ligament.
Raymond Felton added 18 points and J. J. Redick 16 for the Clippers. Los Angeles never trailed, but Phoenix cut the lead to two four times and was down by just one at 94-93 with 10-26 to play. Eric Bledsoe scored 41 to tie the career high he set two games ago, but Phoenix lost its fifth in a row. Devin Booker added 20 points, his 14th straight game scoring at least 20.
Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan drew a flagrant foul two for flattening Phoenix’s Marquese Chriss and was ejected with 4-52 left in the third quarter.
GRIZZLIES 119, NUGGETS 99
Marc Gasol scored 24 points, Mike Conley had 18 and the Memphis Grizzlies beat the short-handed Denver Nuggets. Memphis led for most of the game and won its third in a row. Emmanuel Mudiay had 14 points, seven assists and six rebounds in his return to the Nuggets line-up. Denver came into the game without Nikola Jokic (left hip flexor strain) and Will Barton (left ankle soreness) and then lost two more players before the night ended.
Point guard Jameer Nelson was ejected just 4-07 into the game, leaving the Nuggets with three guards, and leading scorer Danilo Gallinari exited late in the third quarter with a left groin strain. The Grizzlies took advantage of a tired Nuggets team that lost on the road to Lakers on Tuesday. It led by 16 in the first half and increased it to 19 in the third when Gasol had 10 points.
JAZZ 104, BUCKS 88
Rudy Gobert scored 26 points and grabbed 15 rebounds, leading the Utah Jazz to an easy victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. The double-double was Gobert’s 33rd of the season for the Jazz, which also got 27 points from Gordon Hayward. Utah took a 61-43 lead into halftime after dominating the second quarter. Jazz allowed Bucks to score consecutive baskets just once in the second 12 minutes and its 31 points tied for the third-most it has scored in the second quarter this season. Gobert scored 15 of those 31.
Bucks shot well from 3-point range in the first quarter, going 5 for 8, but was just 4 for 15 the rest of the night. Jabari Parker paced the Bucks with 17 points.
BULLS 128, THUNDER 100
Jimmy Butler scored 28 points to help the Chicago Bulls rout the Oklahoma City Thunder. Dwyane Wade had 18 points and seven assists for Bulls, which shot 60 percent from the field overall and 68 percent in the second half. Russell Westbrook had 28 points and eight assists, and Jerami Grant scored a season-high 15 points for Thunder, which lost its third straight overall and had its five-game home winning streak snapped.
It took until the fourth quarter for someone other than Westbrook to reach 10 points for Thunder. Oklahoma City shot just 38 percent from the field and made 10 of 37 3-pointers. It was the second-worst loss of the season for Oklahoma City, behind a 34-point loss in Memphis.
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