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Andre Iguodala came to the rescue again when it mattered most and kept the Golden State Warriors’ streak alive. |
Iguodala buried the game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer and the surging Warriors rallied from 15 down in the fourth quarter for their eighth straight win Friday, a dramatic 101-100 victory over the Atlanta Hawks.
Iguodala got his heroic shot after rebounding Paul Millsap’s jumper with 2.8 seconds remaining and a timeout was called to set up the final play.
Iguodala in-bounded the ball over Hawks centre Pero Antic to Stephen Curry near mid-court defended by Shelvin Mack.
Antic came over to double-team and Curry bounced a pass on the left sideline to a wide-open Iguodala. The veteran calmly rose and splashed in the high-arching difference-maker and sprinted across the court to celebrate the improbable victory. “When I caught it I just turned around and let it go,” said Igoudala, who scored all of his seven points in the final quarter. “I raised my hands, it felt good.”
The game-winner was the fifth of Iguodala’s career and second this season.
“The thing about Andre is that he’s not afraid of the moment,” said Warriors coach Mark Jackson, whose club is on their longest winning streak since 2005. “He’s a big-time player.” David Lee scored 23 points, Curry had 22 points with nine assists and eight rebounds, while Klay Thompson netted 21 for the Warriors (22-13), 4-0 on their season-long seven-game road trip, including Thursday’s win over defending champion Miami.
“Great teams don’t make excuses and we’re trying to become great,” Jackson explained. “We could have said we’re 3-0 on this trip and could have lost to the Hawks after a big win last night. But this team has character and no quit.
“We had been bad for the majority of the night. (We) stepped up the defence, stepped up the offence, began to make plays. This an incredible win for us, especially the way things had been going.”
Macedonian rookie Antic had a career-high 16 points and Mack added 15 off the bench for the Hawks, who led 91-76 midway through the final frame before Iguodala’s last-second heart-breaker.
“We defended the initial action pretty well,” Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said.
“Steph Curry demands a lot of attention. We got the ball out of his hands, and then they made a tough shot. It’s a credit to Iguodala, a credit to Curry for making the pass.”
Just when the Los Angeles Lakers thought their injury problems could not worsen, they were preparing to face the Utah Jazz with a player who was competing in the NBA Development League only two weeks ago. Eight players have so far missed games due to injury during a nightmare 2013-14 season for the Lakers and their revolving door of point guards has turned out a sixth starter in that position with Kendall Marshall suiting up against the Jazz on Friday.
Marshall, 22, was acquired by the D-League’s Delaware 87ers on Dec 3 before being signed up by the Lakers just 17 days later as their casualty list deepened.
“Stuff is happening pretty fast,” Marshall, who is averaging 5.3 points and 2.5 assists in four games as a bench player for Los Angeles, told reporters after learning he would start against the Jazz.
“It’s unfortunate with some of the injuries that we’re having, but it’s up to us collectively as a team to kind of figure it out. I just have to take advantage of it and try to help the team.” Marshall, the 13th overall pick by the Phoenix Suns in the 2012 draft, becomes the Lakers point guard following a rash of injuries to Steve Nash, Steve Blake, Kobe Bryant, Jordan Farmar and Xavier Henry.
Nash has nerve damage in his back, Blake a torn ligament in his right elbow, Bryant and Henry have knee injuries and Farmar a torn hamstring.
JINX SUSPICIONS
The almost unbelievable casualty rate has raised suspicions of a possible jinx, prompting shooting guard Jody Meeks to avoid using the words ‘point guard’.
“It seems like they (the point guards) always get hurt, so I say ‘decision-maker’ instead,” smiled Meeks, who is expected to be Marshall’s backup. “But no matter who it is or what it’s called, the Lakers need hustle and effort there, and in every other position. The one thing we can control is our effort, and we have to do that.”
The (13-19) Lakers will be bidding to snap a six-game losing streak when they host the Jazz and their coach Mike D’Antoni has been hammering home the need for a fighting spirit.
“We’re going to do everything we can to win every game and every second,” said D’Antoni. “That’s our mindset and that’s what it has to be.
“It’s just hard to sustain it (effort) sometimes because your confidence is shaken, you don’t have the swagger we had. You can’t control other things like injuries. Our job is to win.
We’re not doing that right now and it needs to start.”
Spanish forward Pau Gasol, who has missed three games recently because of an upper respiratory infection, agreed that a collective Lakers surge was urgently required with everything “far from ideal right now”.
Gasol said: “It takes a big group effort, really coming in with a special and positive mindset, pulling each other out and helping each other out. Make it hard on the opponents because right now the opponents, they see blood.
“They see a team struggling and they say, ‘Let’s beat them again, bury them deeper.’ We’ve just got to make sure we let teams know it’s not going to be a walk in the park.
“We still have five guys out there on the floor playing basketball. If we play together, we play with intensity and energy, we can make things happen and have good games.”
Elsewhere, German star Dirk Nowitzki topped Dallas with 24 points. Spanish star Pau Gasol collected 23 points, 17 rebounds and eight assists, Kendall Marshall posted career-best of 20 points and 15 assists in his first start, and the Lakers snapped a season-high six-game skid after beating the Jazz, led by the 22 points of Gordon Hayward.
James Harden dropped in 37 points, Aaron Brooks made a pair of free throws with 17 seconds left, and the Rockets escaped the Knicks for the ninth straight time in Houston after Beno Udrih’s potential game-tying runner rimmed out at the buzzer.
Ty Lawson had 18 points with 12 assists, Nate Robinson scored nine of his 15 in the final quarter, and the Nuggets ended an eight-game slide after beating the visiting Grizzlies, who got a game-high 25 points from Zach Randolph.