The Warriors had all of their offensive weapons spaced
effectively on the floor for Wednesday’s final possession against
the Indiana Pacers. But Monta Ellis may as well have been on the
floor by himself. Ellis, presented with his first opportunity to
hit a game-winning shot since he missed one just over a month ago
in Portland, buried a jumper over Indiana’s Brandon Rush with
six-tenths of a second to go to lift Golden State to a 110-108
victory in front of 18,185 at Oracle Arena.
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OAKLAND
The Warriors had all of their offensive weapons spaced effectively on the floor for Wednesday’s final possession against the Indiana Pacers. But Monta Ellis may as well have been on the floor by himself.
Ellis, presented with his first opportunity to hit a game-winning shot since he missed one just over a month ago in Portland, buried a jumper over Indiana’s Brandon Rush with six-tenths of a second to go to lift Golden State to a 110-108 victory in front of 18,185 at Oracle Arena.
The Pacers’ Darren Collison converted a three-point play with 18.1 seconds remaining to tie the game at 108-108. After their timeout, the Warriors inbounded the ball to Ellis, who ran the clock down at the top of the key. Sharpshooters Stephen Curry and Dorell Wright manned the wings with forward David Lee on the baseline.
Golden State had options, but Ellis wasn’t giving the ball up.
“To tell you the truth, no,” Ellis said when asked if he ever thought of passing the ball. “If they would have brought another defender, I would have passed it. But I wanted that shot.”
It was the Warriors’ third win in a row, their second three-game winning streak of the season. They also improved to 4-2 during a 22-game stretch in which they play 18 at home.
The Warriors overcame some uninspired stretches. They trailed by double-digits for over half of the second quarter and were still down 91-83 early in the fourth quarter.
“We needed to get a win. Our guys did that,” Warriors coach Keith Smart said. “During this stretch, that’s going to happen. We were very flat. I told the guys at halftime not to panic. We’ll be able to keep in this game.”
The Warriors were in position to win the game earlier after Curry hit a running bank shot to make it 108-105 with 21.8 seconds to go. But Curry then made a serious error, fouling Collison as he drove to the basket. Collison made the shot and hit the ensuing free throw to tie the game.
“(Ellis) bailed me out and got us a big win,” Curry said. “I just anticipated the play too fast. I knew not to foul. I just wanted to contest it. He used his body to get into me and it looked like a foul, so they called it.”
Said Smart, when asked what he was thinking after Curry committed the foul: “I wasn’t thinking. I had a direct idea in my mind what I was going to say. But we held our composure and we got through the game and won. That’s the bottom line.”
Despite some hefty competition at guard in the Western Conference, Ellis is making it harder and harder to be left off the All-Star team. He finished Wednesday with 36 points, six assists and five rebounds. Ellis entered the night ranked third in the NBA in scoring and steals and first in minutes played.
“He’s one of the guys who is playing very, very good basketball,” Smart said. “He’s been doing it all year. From training camp, he made a statement how he is going to play this year. He’s playing at a great rate and I think it’s going to keep going. That’s all he can do and all we can do. Then it’s up to someone else to make that decision. But right now, his game is speaking for him.”
The Warriors also got surprising production from forward Brandan Wright, who had only played in 12 games all season, and hadn’t played in the previous three. He played 12 minutes, including during crunch time and finished with six points and four rebounds.
“He came in there and did just what we needed to get done at that juncture of the game,” Smart said. “He came in and made some big plays on both sides of the ball.”
— Story by Jonathan Okanes, Contra Costa Times
