LOS ANGELES: Stephen Curry scored 37 points, Brandin Podziemski added 28 and the Golden State Warriors defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 123-116 on Thursday night for their fourth win in a row in a potential first-round playoff preview.
Podziemski had a career-high eight 3-pointers on a night when Curry was 4 of 11 from long range. Curry was coming off a 52-point effort, including 12 3-pointers, at Memphis on Tuesday.
LeBron James had 33 points and nine assists to lead the Lakers. Austin Reaves added 31 points, including nine 3-pointers, Rui Hachimura had 24 points and Luke Doncic had 19 points, missing all six of his 3-point attempts.
Doncic’s basket got the Lakers to 105-99 in the closing minutes. Curry and Podziemski hit back-to-back 3-pointers and James and Reaves answered with ones of their own, leaving the Lakers down by seven.
James and Curry traded scoring runs in the third, when the Lakers closed within eight after trailing by 16 in the second quarter. James had 12 of 14 points for his team early on. Curry ran off 13 in a row and then made three free throws to send the Warriors into the fourth leading 88-77.
Jonathan Kuminga added 18 points and nine rebounds off the bench for Golden State, which beat the Lakers for the first time in four games this season. The Warriors’ last win in LA came a year ago.
Takeaways
Warriors: They closed a six-game trip — tied for longest of the season — with a 4-2 mark. They remain in a tight battle to hold onto a top-six seed and avoid the play-in tournament with six games left.
Lakers: James went over 11,000 points as a Laker on a 3-pointer in the second quarter, becoming the 10th player in franchise history to do so.
Key moment
Reaves made a 3-pointer coming out of a timeout to leave the Lakers trailing 121-116 in the closing seconds. But Doncic fouled Curry, who made both.
Key stat
The Warriors won without needing Jimmy Butler, who had 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting. He’d been averaging 17.3 and had 27 against Memphis.
Up next
Both teams complete back-to-backs on Saturday. The Warriors host Denver and the Lakers host New Orleans.
Stephen Curry scores 37 points as Warriors beat Lakers in potential first-round playoff preview
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Stephen Curry scores 37 points as Warriors beat Lakers in potential first-round playoff preview
- The Golden State Warriors score their fourth win in a row
- Curry was coming off a 52-point effort, including 12 3-pointers, at Memphis on Tuesday
Mid East Falcons and Mumbai Cobras to meet in historic United Series in Dubai
- The league’s top 2 teams collide in a best-of-3 series this weekend at Baseball United Ballpark in Dubai
DUBAI: The Mid East Falcons and Mumbai Cobras face-off on Friday night at Baseball United Ballpark in the United Series, the sport’s first regional championship.
Both teams finished tied atop the Baseball United season one standings with 6-3 records. However, Mumbai will start and close game three, if necessary, as the home team, since they finished first in the standings after winning the head-to-head series.
The Cobras are the first professional baseball team in the history of India. They represent nearly 30 million people in Mumbai and 1.5 billion people in India, the majority of whom are fans of bat-and-ball games, with cricket the nation’s top sport.
Baseball United has reached tens of millions of those fans this year through broadcasts on several of the network’s linear channels as well as the Zee 5 app.
The Mid East Falcons represent the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi, and they have quickly grown both a regional following across the GCC, as well as a global fanbase in Japan.
More than half of the Falcons’ roster is made up of Japanese players, including Nippon Professional League legends Munenori Kawasaki and Hiroyuki Nakajima.
The team also has young prospects from the Yokohama Bay Stars, one of Japan’s top professional baseball teams, adding to its appeal within that baseball-loving nation.
Locally, the Falcons have drawn the largest attendance for each of their games at Baseball United Ballpark, with attendees from more than 50 nationalities coming to support the Mid East team.
“This is the United Series matchup that fans across the world were craving,” said Kash Shaikh, chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Baseball United.
“We have Mumbai vs. Mid East, the two top teams from the regular season who have rosters full of talent, character, and personality. The Falcons are both the UAE’s team and Japan’s team.
“The Cobras represent 1.5 billion people in India. All three nations, as well as fans across the baseball world, will be watching closely as we crown our first-ever United Series Champion this weekend.”
The United Series is a best-of-three championship contest. After Friday’s opening game, games two and three will follow on Saturday and Sunday.
The Falcons are managed by Dennis Cook, a 15-year MLB veteran who won a World Series title with the Florida Marlins in 1997. Cook has been a part of Baseball United since its inaugural showcase games in November 2023.
“Baseball United’s leadership team has done an outstanding job to get us to this point,” Cook said. “We are very excited to play against Mariano (Duncan) and the Mumbai Cobras, and we are very focused on becoming the first Baseball United champions in history.”
Cook has had a unique challenge of managing a roster in which the majority of the players do not communicate in English.
“We are a very diverse team, it’s been great to work with the Japanese kids. I admire them and I like the way we communicate. I don’t speak Japanese, but we have our own way to communicate and it has been a lot of fun.”
The Falcons led the league in both batting (.271 BA) and pitching (2.25 ERA) as a team, and nearly swept the league’s regular season awards, with Kazuki Yabuta (Best Pitcher), Manato Tanai (Best Fielder), Munenori Kawasaki (Clubhouse Award), and Alejandro De Aza (Sportsmanship).
In addition, Nakajima has been atop the league leaders in batting (.400) throughout the year. LHP Shuto Sakurai will be the starting pitcher for game one of the United Series.
Brantley Bell (.441 BA, 1.213 OPS), the star third baseman from the Cobras, won the league’s first-ever Most Valuable Player Award. In addition to Bell, Caleb McNeely (3 HRs, 10 RBIs, .688 SLG), Lou Helmig (2 HR, 10 RBIs) and Miguel Ojeda Jr. (2 HR, 8 RBIs) led the Cobras’ batting attack.
The Mumbai bullpen was also solid all year behind Akeel Morris (0.00 ERA) and LHP Brandon Kaminer (0.00 ERA), who together have accumulated 18.0 scoreless innings with 16 strikeouts.
In addition, there are three Indian-born pitchers who have caused a sensation in their country: Akshay More, Tushar Lalwani and Saurabh Gaikwad.
More is 2-0 with 11.1 innings pitched and a 1.59 ERA. Karan Patel, the franchise’s No. 1 starter, will take the mound to start the United Series on Friday night. Patel has 14 strikeouts in 10.1 innings.
Duncan, a 12-year MLB veteran who won two World Series Championships, manages the Mumbai Cobras. He has also been a part of Baseball United since the Dubai Showcase in 2023.
“It’s been an honor to be part of Baseball United. The first season has been an amazing experience, I’m so proud to be part of this history.
“This team has a great chemistry and passion for the game of baseball, but we also have good batting, good pitching, power and speed, and we are going to close strong to make history this weekend.”
