Warriors buck Pacers surge, go 23-and-nil

INDIANAPOLIS – Klay Thompson and his teammates spent the first three quarters playing as flawlessly as their unbeaten record.

They spent the last 12 minutes Tuesday trying to protect their perfect quest.

On a night Thompson scored a season-high 39 points and reigning MVP Stephen Curry nearly had a triple-double, the Warriors improved to 23-0 by stopping Indiana’s furious fourth-quarter comeback and holding on for a 131-123 victory.

“We’ve got to handle the end of the game better. We had a double-digit lead. You don’t ever want to have to win the game twice or even three times,” Curry said. “You want to make things as easy as possible when you have a night like we did for 36 minutes.”

The defending NBA champions have made things look pretty easy in what has already been a milestone season.

They’ve won 27 straight dating to last spring, tying the 2012-13 Heat for the second-longest streak in NBA history. The 1971-72 Lakers hold the record with 33 wins in a row.

Golden State also has won 13 straight road games, breaking a tie with the 1969-70 Knicks for the league’s best road start.

In other results, Cleveland rallied to beat Portland, 105-100; Brooklyn stopped Houston, 110-105; Oklahoma routed Memphis, 125-88; Orlando subdued Denver, 85-74; and Sacramento trounced Utah, 114-106.

Back in Indianapolis, Curry, the league’s leading scorer, finished with 29 points, 10 assists, seven rebounds and three three-pointers, tying Rashard Lewis’ NBA record of 87 consecutive road games with at least one basket from beyond the arc.

But Thompson made a splash with his incredible first half. He scored 29 points, made 8 of 10 3s and was the key to a 22-0 run that forced Indiana (12-8) to play catch-up the rest of the night.

“It was one of those nights where I got a lot of great looks. Going in I felt great,” Thompson said. “I felt like I was due for a game like that.”

For the Warriors there were only two big concerns.

Thompson rolled his ankle late in the game and said afterward he expected to be bruised for the next couple of days. Fortunately for Thompson, Golden State doesn’t play again till Friday at Boston.

The other: Letting Indiana back into the game.

Golden State led 50-28 in the second quarter, extended the lead to 32 in the third quarter, started the fourth quarter with a 28-point advantage and was still up by 21 with 7:11 left in the game.

But Indiana (12-8) rallied with a 23-8 run to get within six in the final minute before the Warriors closed it out.

Paul George finished with 33 points, eight rebounds and six assists while C.J. Miles added 24 points -- not enough to prevent the Pacers from losing their third in a row.