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Warriors erase 24-point deficit, use 47-15 third quarter to beat 76ers

By

Kerry Crowley

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“The process,” is thrilling, engaging, full of life and full of hope. But “the process,” is still young, still incomplete, and on Saturday night, it was still incapable of going toe-to-toe for a full four quarters against the champs.

Thanks to a jaw-dropping 47-15 run in the third quarter, Golden State erased a 24-point first half deficit and opened up a 10-point edge en route to a 124-116 victory, their second over Philadelphia in as many weeks.

The 76ers went through hell and back in an effort to position themselves to compete with the NBA’s elite, and in the first half on Saturday, that’s all Brent Brown’s team did. The upstarts of the Eastern Conference opened up a 24-point edge on the Golden State Warriors, using a 47-point first quarter to expose the Dubs’ defense in a way it hasn’t been thrashed in a single quarter since November 14, 1992, when the franchise allowed 48 in a frame against the Portland Trailblazers.

Philadelphia embarrassed Golden State in the first, falling a three-pointer shy of a 50-point quarter in a dominant offensive effort highlighted by a 19-for-26 performance from the field. Guard Robert Covington paced all scorers with 15 points on five made three-pointers, but it was center Joel Embiid who opened the scoring for the 76ers with an emphatic dunk in the lane on the Warriors’ first defensive possession.

Embiid isn’t the only rare athletic specimen the 76ers boast, though, as 6-foot-10 point guard Ben Simmons is a wunderkind on drives. While Simmons has caught flack for his inability to shoot from distance, he crushed the Warriors in the paint during the first half and added a pair of incredible highlight-reel plays to his resume.

As Covington beat the Warriors from downtown, Simmons helped Philadelphia open a 22-point lead with his play in the post, driving past Warriors’ forwards David West and Omri Casspi to secure buckets. The LSU product and former No. 1 overall pick cashed in on 7-of-8 field goal attempts in the first half, all of which came inside the arc.

While the Warriors were sluggish in front of an energized 76ers’ crowd, Golden State still managed to keep the game within range thanks to aggressive play from Kevin Durant, who offset a poor shooting half from Steph Curry by forcing Philadelphia to expend energy contesting drives and cuts to the basket.

Durant’s efforts, though, were largely unsupported by the rest of his Warriors’ teammates, and a late three-point miss turned into a five-point swing heading into the halftime break. Embiid’s hand in Durant’s face was enough of a contest to alter the forward’s shot, and as soon as Embiid recognized Durant’s attempt was bound to miss, he took off down the floor and finished off Philadelphia’s first half explosion exactly the way he started it.

Facing a 20-point halftime deficit, the Warriors opened up the second half on an 11-2 run, beginning their long effort to close the gap with more efficiency on the offensive end of the floor. After missing all four three-point attempts in the first half, Curry drilled a step back triple to pull the Warriors within 16 just over two minutes into the quarter.

The Warriors continued their role late into the third quarter, and caught a break when an Embiid chase-down effort went south. As center Zaza Pachulia tore down the floor on a break, Embiid soared to block Pachulia’s layup and wound up doing a face plant that forced him to miss a handful of minutes as the Warriors were heating up. When Embiid finally returned to the floor, Golden State had cut its 24-point deficit down to just two points.

Though Golden State trailed by 24 points with 55 seconds left in the second quarter, the Warriors had overcome the entire deficit by the 1:49 mark of the third quarter when Curry drilled a pair of free throws to give his team a 90-89 edge. Two more Curry free throws and a deep three-pointer gave him 20 points for the quarter, his highest-scoring quarter of the season, and helped him eclipse the 30-point threshold in a game for the fourth time this season.

The Warriors ended up winning the third quarter by an absurd 32-point margin, and hanging on to win thanks to several key contributions from their bench. While Curry’s 20th career 20-point quarter set the tone for Golden State, a three-pointer from Nick Young and a dunk from David West offered the Warriors a pair of second half highlights from their bench players.

After falling 92-88 in Boston on Thursday night, the Warriors rebounded against a determined Philadelphia squad on Saturday night with their best quarter of the season, and ultimately, their best half of the season on a night where the reigning champs proved once again just how far “The Process” has to go.

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