AP – Klay Thompson scored 29 points, Stephen Curry added 25 and the Golden State Warriors closed in on a playoff berth by beating the short-handed Sacramento Kings 119-97 on Friday night.
The defending-champion Warriors missed a chance to clinch the postseason when New Orleans won earlier in the night but can still get in as one of the top six seeds in the Western Conference by winning at Portland in the season finale today.
“I think for us, you go in and you try to win the game and we get what we want,” guard Donte DiVincenzo said. “What we want is to not be in that play-in game. So simple as that.”
Golden State could get in with a loss today depending on other results but could be relegated to the play-in tournament instead.
DiVincenzo added 18 points for the Warriors, who have won seven of nine games.
Trey Lyles and Chimezie Metu each scored 15 points to lead the Kings, who were locked in as the No. 3 seed in the West after Memphis won earlier in the night.
“Both halves we started out real slow,” coach Mike Brown said. “We had to play catch-up. Fighting uphill against a team like that… made it tough.”
With little at stake, the Kings rested their top three scorers with De’Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis and Kevin Huerter all getting the night off.
That took some of the energy out of a sold-out building that had been excited for a possible playoff preview between the two neighbouring franchises who have never even made the playoffs in the same year since the Kings moved to Sacramento for the 1985-86 season.
“That would be amazing,” Thompson said of a possible Warriors-Kings playoff matchup.
“That’d be special for Northern California. The Kings have great fans. We have great fans.
Mike B has them boys playing together and hard and that would be really cool.”
The Warriors raced to a 32-16 lead after one quarter but got sloppy in the second when the Kings took advantage of seven turnovers in the quarter and good outside shooting to cut the deficit to 53-48 at the half. “Carelessness was the main cause,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. Sacramento played hard and they got into the ball and they forced a couple. But you saw some of the careless passing that we’re not going to be able to get away with in the playoffs.”
Golden State built the lead back up to 13 points in the third quarter and were never seriously threatened in the final quarter.
