NBA Week 10 Rewind: West elite emerging above all others

The Key Games and Results of Week 10

In their first game without Golden Boy Stephen Curry this season, Golden State lost. The Mavericks kept their three-game win streak going, and utilized every shooter on their roster to take down the Warriors. With six players scoring in double digits and J.J. Barea leading the way with 23 on 9-of-12 shooting, the Mavs easily held onto the lead as the Warriors shot just 40 percent for the game.

Zaza Pachulia started strong by recording a double double in the first half, Barea shot well early (unlike the Warriors), and Dirk Nowitzki even threw down a dunk as the Mavs took a 60-42 lead after the first two quarters.

From that point on, the Warriors never really caught up as they had to make do without Curry. Not only did they lack his remarkable scoring ability, but they also lacked the attention he draws away from everyone else, too. As they trailed 51-80 with five minutes to go in the third, it was obvious they missed the MVP when their shots didn’t fall.

Despite having two wins following this loss, the Warriors haven’t won in nearly as convincing fashion as they have done for virtually the entire season. They snuck past the Houston Rockets 114-110 on December 31, before only defeating the Denver Nuggets 108-111 in overtime on January 2.

There’s no denying how incredibly talented the rest of their roster is, but playing without Curry for two games and losing him again after 14 minutes against the Nuggets took away a lot of their magic. Not to mention, Harrison Barnes has been out since November and Festus Ezeli has been out the last three games. Of course, these injuries were going to be detrimental, although it just shows that even the Warriors can be unfortunate enough to deal with such matters.

They went up 25-2 in the first quarter against the Nuggets, yet still needed overtime to beat them. They are incredibly strong, but they aren’t unbeatable.

A matchup between two of the top teams in the Eastern Conference was a great way to bring 2015 to an end just before New Year’s Eve. Paul George has been having the best season of his career, which has been made even better seeing as he’s still coming back from an injury. He’s helped the Pacers improve, but after going 5-5 in their last 10 games, they’ve fallen to 6th in the East. Meanwhile, the Bulls have risen to the 2nd seed after winning four straight.

In this contest, the Bulls entered the second half with a 50-40 lead. However, as the Pacers held the Bulls to just 16 points in the third and outscored them 29-25 in the fourth, they managed to make a comeback. Thanks to Jimmy Butler’s late game heroics, they sent the game to overtime.

When Butler hit a three that bounced up off the rim and luckily fell in, the game was tied at 89 with just 35 seconds left. Then, after he finished a strong drive to tie again and Monta Ellis missed an attempted game-winner, they went to an extra period to decide the outcome.

Just as Butler came up late in regulation, though, he was at it again in overtime. In this instance, a perfect pass from Pau Gasol led to Butler rising above George to score a go-ahead basket with just over a second left that won the game.

Here’s the beautiful play itself:

As if the Suns weren’t already going through a tough enough season, they’ve now lost Eric Bledsoe for the season due to a torn meniscus. Seeing as he was on pace to potentially earn his first All-Star appearance in a career-year, his absence will feel even greater. Since then, to add even more insult to injury, the Suns have been demolished by the Kings in a completely out-of-hand 119-142 point loss on January 2.

With scores that seem almost hard to believe, it’s less hard to believe that the Suns are all the way down at 24th in the NBA for defensive efficiency. They let the Kings get into the paint far too easily, their rotations and switches on defense were often too slow, and they allowed 34 free throw attempts.

Even though the Suns racked up 119 points themselves, they still allowed the Kings to shoot 60 percent and somehow out-score them. If a team’s defense is even remotely resilient, it’s still hard to surrender 142 points. Yet, that’s what the Suns did. That was essentially the story of Phoenix’s downfall when they let Sacramento pull away with a 44-point third quarter.

Here are the Kings’ top scorers from their big night:

• DeMarcus Cousins: 32 points (11-of-15 shooting)
• Darren Collison: 21 points (7-of-10 shooting)
• Marco Belinelli: 19 points (7-of-11 shooting)
• Rudy Gay: 16 points (8-of-16 shooting)
• Rajon Rondo: 15 points, 15 assists (6-of-11 shooting)
• Omri Casspi: 13 points (4-of-8 shooting)

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