After playing only seven minutes on the season before re-aggravating his hamstring injury that forced him to miss the last 22 games, David Lee made his return tonight against the Sacramento Kings. He will be eased in to the rotation and play on a minute’s restriction initially. Tonight, he had an effective 16 minutes, scoring six points and grabbing seven rebounds. Lee's injury vaulted Draymond Green in to the starting lineup and at this point, Green has played so well that Kerr might decide to have Lee come off the bench for the rest of the season. Tonight though, the team was without their starting center Andrew Bogut, so Kerr decided to play Lee and Green together with Lee playing as the center.
Golden State controlled the tempo and ultimately the score the whole game. They came out firing on all cylinders, building a 36-20 lead after the first quarter. Sacramento was not able to make any real threat of coming back in the game. Their largest deficit of the night was 23 points, and they were playing with a double digit deficit for most of the game.
Festus Ezeli put together arguably the best game of his career with a career-high 15 points on 7-of-11 shooting while adding six rebounds and two blocks in 18 minutes of action. Not only was Ezeli effective offensively, but he was also pesky on the defensive end, guarding Sacramento's best player, DeMarcus Cousins. Cousins still put together his usual solid stat line of 22 points on 9-of-19 shooting, eight rebounds, and six assists in 30 minutes, but most his damage was done while Ezeli was on the bench.
Shaun Livingston is etched in as the first guard to come off the bench to spell either Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson, but Steve Kerr is still trying to determine whether Leandro Barbosa, Brandon Rush, or Justin Holiday will be his second guard to come off the bench. Kerr has given each of the three players a chance to play for their spot. Tonight, Holiday got the call, and he may just have played himself in to a regular role in the rotation by dropping in a career-high 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting in 20 minutes. Rush and Barbosa played more limited roles, logging only seven and four minutes respectively.
Although a 128-108 loss wouldn't indicate so, Sacramento played a solid game but was just way too overmatched by Golden State. They scored 108 points and shot 47.8 percent from the field against a team that only has only allowed an average of 97.8 points and has limited opponents to an average of 41.6 percent from the field on the season, so there are some positive takeaways in a blowout loss.
Klay Thompson led all scorers with 25 points on 10-of-16 shooting. Stephen Curry had 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting, 11 assists, and three steals.
Golden State will look to keep to their winning ways tomorrow night when they head to Los Angeles to face the Lakers. Sacramento will get a few days to rest up and will look to get back on track Friday against the Phoenix Suns.