Warriors become 1st team with 3 40-assist games since 96-97 Bulls

The Golden State Warriors do not boast the most efficient offense in the NBA — that title belongs to the Toronto Raptors — but theirs is certainly the most feared. When Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, and Draymond Green are all on the court, defenses must pick several poisons under even the best of circumstances. Someone is going to be open, and that player is likely going to have a pretty good chance of scoring.

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Like many teams, the New York Knicks found out just how tough stopping that group can be during Thursday night’s game at Oracle Arena. The comfortable 103-90 win was not especially notable — the Warriors are a much better team and faced a Knicks squad resting Carmelo Anthony due to a sore shoulder. Steve Kerr’s pregame tribute to Craig Sager was undoubtedly the most memorable moment of the night.

Yet the Warriors made the game worthy of our attention regardless thanks to their assist numbers. Golden State assisted on its first 36 field goals and finished with 41 on the night, becoming the first team since the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls to reach 40 three times in a season. For reference, the Warriors have played all of 27 games so far in 2016-17.

To be fair, some of those first 36 assists easily could have been taken off the board. Then again, a team does not assist on 41 of 45 buckets — 91.1 percent, the franchise’s highest since 1995 — because of scorekeeper bias. The Warriors carved up the NBA’s 26th-rated defense with ease, often simply passing from man to man until someone had an ideal shot. If not for poor three-point shooting (9-of-32, 28.1 percent) and a lackluster performance in garbage time, the Warriors easily could have won by 40 points or more.

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That iffy shooting meant that few players finished with stellar scoring lines, although Stephen Curry (eight points, eight assists, and 10 rebounds) and Kevin Durant (15 points, 14 rebounds, and eight assists) easily could have logged triple-doubles if they’d been needed for more minutes in the fourth. It’s not every day that JaVale McGee finishes with the second-most points on the team (17 on 8-of-10 FG).

Still, Klay Thompson put up an efficient 25 points on 10-of-18 shooting to lead the way.

However, the most attention-grabbing line of the night came from young Knicks star Kristaps Porzingis, who came into the game talking up his desire to take on Draymond Green. There’s no question who got the better of the matchup — Porzingis finished with just eight points on 4-of-13 shooting in 35 minutes. Green made it obvious that he relished the assignment:

Perhaps that’s why he stayed in the game in the fourth quarter when the result was well in hand. A 6-of-13 performance looks a lot different from 4-of-13.

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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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