CLEVELAND — The Warriors have made their mark in the third quarter this season but waited until the fourth to jostle control away from the short-handed Cavaliers Thursday night at Rocket Mortgage Arena.
Playing against a Cleveland team missing four of its top six scorers, Golden State trailed by 10 entering the final period but was able to pull away for a 104-89 win. The Warriors held Cleveland to eight points in the fourth quarter, a mark exceeded individually by Stephen Curry and Damion Lee.
Curry and Lee fueled a fourth-quarter burst that was driven by Golden State’s suffocating defense, providing the separation Golden State (13-2) was seeking all night. The two guards combined for 29 points — 20 by Curry, nine from Lee — in the fourth quarter as the Warriors erased an 81-71 deficit entering the final period.
Curry finished with a game-high 40 points, complemented by Draymond Green’s season-high 14 assists.
But the majority of the game was dominated by a patchwork of Cavaliers.
The Warriors used two runs with big contributions off the bench to eke out a win.
It was Lee and Curry who stepped up in the fourth quarter, but Gary Payton II and Nemanja Bjelica provided the spark to pull the Warriors out of an initial 10-0 hole.
In one of his best games since joining the Warriors, Bjelica scored 14 points, and Golden State outscored Cleveland by 22 with him on the floor, bested only by Lee’s plus-28.
The tall ball Cavs exposed some flaws in the small ball Warriors, even in a losing effort.
Cleveland nearly doubled up the Warriors on the glass (56-36) and outrebounded them on the offensive glass 13-5.
Golden State fell into a 10-0 hole and only regained momentum enough to briefly pull ahead before allowing the Cavs to climb back and take a 54-51 lead into halftime.
Cleveland was rarely missing and cleaning up the glass when it did. The Warriors were being nearly doubled up on the boards, 31-16, at halftime. Cleveland got second chances on seven possessions and converted them into 12 points.
Cleveland made its shots at nearly a 50% clip in the first half but ended the game at 42.5%. They started missing, stopped getting the rebound when they did, and that allowed the Warriors to take control, at last, in the final quarter.
Guard Darius Garland scored a team-high 25 points for the Cavs (9-8).
