NEW YORK (AP) — Stephen Curry looked at a box score that showed no Warriors but him made a three-pointer.
It certainly wasn’t a pretty win, but in what’s been a difficult season, Golden State will take them whatever way they come.
Curry scored 29 points, Jonathan Kuminga added 28 and the Warriors shook off a poor start to beat the Brooklyn Nets 109-98 on Monday night.
The Warriors were coming off an overtime loss Saturday in Atlanta despite 60 points and 10 3-pointers from Curry, and looked as if they hadn’t regained their energy when this game started. Golden State was just 2 for 11 on 3-pointers and committed 10 turnovers that led to 15 points while being held to 43 points in the first half.
But they outscored the Nets 66-49 in the second half, even while going just 4 for 22 from behind the arc in the game — with all the makes by Curry.
“It was ugly on both sides but I think everybody was trying to execute and trying to settle into the style of the game, and then thankfully in the second half we made the right adjustments and took control and never looked back,” Curry said.
Golden State hadn’t won a game when shooting under 19% from 3-point range since beating Boston 108-88 despite going 5 for 28 (17.9%) on March 15, 2014, the season before winning its first of four titles in eight years.
Kuminga added 10 rebounds while reaching 20 points for the ninth time in his last 10 games. Draymond Green finished with eight points, nine rebounds and seven assists as the Warriors outrebounded the Nets 60-38 and had a 23-7 advantage in second-chance points.
Cam Thomas scored 18 points, but shot 4 for 21 for the Nets, who had won three of four. Thomas scored 41 points in a loss in San Francisco in December, the most allowed by the Warriors this season.
Nic Claxton added 15 points and a career-high seven blocked shots before being ejected in the fourth quarter for a flagrant foul against Brandin Podziemski, who had 15 points and 11 rebounds.
The Nets scored 147 points against Utah on Jan. 29 and 136 in Philadelphia on Saturday. But they were nowhere close to that level Monday, shooting 38% and getting poor nights from leading scorer Mikal Bridges (5 for 15) and Spencer Dinwiddie (3 for 12).
“But we had our chances tonight. If we took care of the rebound piece, which we’ll continue to challenge our guys with —- that’s been a little slippage overall,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said. “If there’s one area we’ve kind of slid in, it’s definitely the rebounding piece and we need multiple bodies to participate.”
The Nets played without Ben Simmons, who sat out the front of a back-to-back but is scheduled to play Tuesday when the Nets host Dallas in Kyrie Irving’s return to Brooklyn.
The Nets were 3 for 16 from 3-point range in the first quarter, yet led 23-20 thanks largely to 12 points off seven Warriors turnovers. Golden State didn’t reach 30 points until more than halfway through the second quarter and didn’t get a 3-pointer until Curry made one with 4:29 remaining in the half, the 3,600th of his career.
Brooklyn led 49-43 at halftime, but Kuminga had dunks on Golden State’s first two possessions of the third quarter and that seemed to loosen up the Warriors, who outscored the Nets 32-21 to take a 75-70 lead to the fourth.
“Against that kind of switching defense, if you’re kind of jogging through stuff it’s really easy to just switch and say in front,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “So I thought the first five minutes of the second half really set a good tone. Our guys were much sharper and harder with the cuts.”
Brooklyn cut it to four with 3:06 left, but Kuminga scored the next four points and Curry then scored Golden State’s next five to make it 105-94.
