CLEVELAND: Kevin Durant scored 32 points, Stephen Curry added 23 and the Golden State Warriors extended their road winning streak to 13 games with a 118-108 Martin Luther King holiday victory Monday night over the Cleveland Cavaliers, their struggling NBA Finals foes.
Durant scored 16 in the third quarter for the defending NBA champions, who haven’t lost outside Oracle Arena since Nov. 22.
LeBron James scored 32 points and Kevin Love 17 for Cleveland, which had its home winning streak stopped at 13. Isaiah Thomas, getting his first taste of the Warriors-Cavaliers rivalry, had 19 points in a season-high 32 minutes as he works his way back from a hip injury.
It was Golden State’s second straight win over the Cavs, who have dropped eight of 10 dating to a loss to the Warriors on Christmas Day. Cleveland was down just 93-91 entering the fourth, but the Cavs missed 17 of 19 shots to open the period, allowing Golden State to throttle away.
The Warriors and Cavs have met in the Finals each of the past three years. There’s no guarantee there will be a fourth matchup, and at this point only one of them looks prepared for June.
Cleveland was home after going 1-4 on a road trip that included blowout losses in Minnesota and Toronto.
But while the Cavs aren’t playing like themselves, Warriors coach Steve Kerr was confident they’d look different in June.
“I am very aware that they have LeBron,” Kerr said before the game. “We’ve played them in the Finals three straight years and I guarantee you there was a moment like this in all three seasons — at least one, sometimes more. So we know. He’s always going to get the ship righted and what happens now has nothing to do with what happens later.”
Despite their recent struggles, the Cavs remain a confident bunch, and they showed some early swagger. After he and his teammates were introduced to “Gloves Are Comin’ Off” by rapper 7kingZ, James came out swinging.
He was in attack mode from the start, scoring 16 points in the first quarter and setting the tone for the Cavs.
Later in the half, James retreated down the lane for a huge block on Durant, blasting the ball off the glass to trigger memories for Cleveland fans of his famous chase down on Andre Iguodala in the closing minutes of Game 7 of the 2016 Finals.
But by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, the Warriors were up to their usual tricks.
And when Iguodala dropped a shot with 1:24 left to put Golden State up by 14, Durant waved both arms like a boxing referee stopping a fight.
Durant’s 32 points send Warriors past LeBron, Cavs 118-108
Durant’s 32 points send Warriors past LeBron, Cavs 118-108
Sweden’s Ekstrom takes Dakar stage seven win in Saudi Arabia
- Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah stays top in the car category
WADI AL-DAWASI: Mattias Ekstrom won stage seven of the Dakar Rally on Sunday as the field started the second week in Saudi Arabia with late drama for Toyota’s Henk Lategan while Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah stayed top in the car category.
South African Lategan had looked like taking the stage and overall lead but let both slip through his fingers after the day’s final checkpoint.
Instead, Sweden’s Ekstrom, winner of the prologue in a Ford Raptor, became the first driver in the top car category to take more than one stage this year.
Lategan had led Ekstrom after 417 of 459km from Riyadh to Wadi Al-Dawasir, but finished eight minutes and 35 seconds behind the winner after having to stop for 10 minutes at the 428km mark.
Ekstrom moved up to second overall, four minutes and 47 seconds behind Dacia Sandriders’ five-times Dakar winner Al-Attiyah with Lategan third.
Spaniard Nani Roma was fourth for Ford after being reinstated by stewards late on Saturday’s rest day as winner of stage five and having a one minute and 10 second penalty rescinded.
In the motorcycle category, Australian Daniel Sanders extended his lead over American rival Ricky Brabec to four minutes and 25 seconds with Argentine rider Luciano Benavides a further 15 seconds adrift.
Sanders had been a mere 45 seconds clear after Friday’s sixth stage but Honda’s Brabec finished the 459km stage 10th to the Australian’s fourth.
Argentine Benavides won the stage, his second triumph of the event, in a one-two for the Red Bull KTM factory team with Spaniard Edgar Canet, while Honda’s French challenger Adrien Van Beveren was third.
Monday’s 481km stage eight is the longest of the race with riders and drivers navigating canyons and dunes around Wadi Ad Dawasir.
