Warriors get scare from Raptors

A win against IN on Tuesday would give them the best-ever road start.

Kyle Lowry made six 3-pointers and scored a career-high 41 points for Toronto, which has dropped three of four.

They trailed just 83-79 with a quarter left to play, and scraped out a one-point lead with just under five minutes to go on a spectacular sequence that saw a Lowry three-pointer, a DeRozan layup, and a Lowry layup.

It was enough to allow the Warriors to match the 1969-70 Knicks for the longest season-opening road win streak, with 12, while also keeping alive their other streaks – 22 in a row this season, 26 in a row overall – for at least two more days. After a missed three by Bojan Bogdanovic, Curry lobbed an alley-oop from three-point territory to Festus Ezeli, who slammed it down for an 81-78 lead.

Curry calmly drilled a pair of threes – he’d had confidently turned and headed back upcourt before the ball fell through the net on each – to put Golden State up by two points with 2:33 left to play.

5 seconds left. Curry makes his free throws, Warriors up 3.

Curry and Thompson returned but neither player was needed on the second night of a back-to-back.

Draymond Green had another good all-around game finishing with 22 points on 7-of-10 shooting with 9 rebounds and 7 assists.

Hornets 102, Bulls 96: Guard Nicolas Batum scored 24 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as the Charlotte Hornets held on for a 102-96 win over the Chicago Bulls.

Sunday night at Barclays Center against the Warriors was the same story, as Golden State jumped out to a 9-0 run, with eight of those points coming from Klay Thompson. The inbound pass from Lee capped a fourth quarter in which he scored 13 of his 18 points. But the ex-Warrior shot just 3 of 13 from the field on Sunday for 11 points.

Curry rewarded teammates and fans alike, whether with a backdoor cut and finish from Draymond Green feed in the first, or shaking off his defender and punctuating the rising sound of the crowd with a teardrop finish in the second.

The Nets led 76-72 at the 2:44 mark of the third, and that was when the game changed. Warriors take a 1-point lead. Curry then led the Warriors on a 20-10 run to close out the quarter, scoring 14 himself.

Warriors: Golden State outscored its opponents by a total of 308 points in its first 20 games, the best margin in National Basketball Association history for that point in the season…. On the second anniversary of the death of former South African president Nelson Mandela, Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri hosted “The Giant of Africa”, an evening-long celebration of Mandela’s life and legacy.

Cleveland made a decision to rest James after he played 45 minutes in New Orleans Friday night.

The Raptors also played a tight game at Golden State on November 17, losing 115-110. Toronto continues a six-game home stand with games against the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs, Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers in their next four outings.