INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Pacers looked playoff-ready Thursday night (Friday Manila time) against a Golden State team that's still working on it.
Bojan Bogdanovic scored 28 points on a nearly perfect shooting night, Victor Oladipo added 21 and the Pacers pulled away from the short-handed defending champions for a 126-106 blowout — and their first season sweep of the Warriors since 2011-12.
"We're the underdog in every matchup," Oladipo said. "We've just got to continue to keep getting better. We still have room to get better, especially going into the playoffs."
It's hard to imagine how much better the Pacers can play after dominating the three-time defending Western Conference champs, who played their seventh straight game without Stephen Curry due to a left MCL sprain.
The Pacers shot better than the high-scoring Warriors inside and outside the 3-point line. They outrebounded Golden State and held Klay Thompson scoreless in the second half. They took the lead for good on Lance Stephenson's 3 with 9:46 left in the first half and never allowed Golden State to get closer than 10 after halftime.
https://sja.sportradar.com/w/Philstar Global/12234904/313100
After falling into a 21-point deficit with 7:14 left, Warriors coach Steve Kerr pulled five players, including Kevin Durant, leaving them on the bench for the rest of the game before delivering his blunt postgame assessment.
"I think just caring, caring in general, that was the main problem," he said. "Just in general, it's hard to win an NBA game if you don't put forth an effort at all. Yeah, I'm mad. I'm embarrassed. I know that this game doesn't mean anything in the seeding, but the playoffs start next week. It was an embarrassing effort, a pathetic effort."
Indiana took full advantage.
The Pacers became the first Eastern Conference team to sweep the Warriors since 2013-14. They earned their sixth win in seven games and their second in nine days over Golden State.
Indiana also moved a half-game closer to supplanting Philadelphia for the No. 4 seed.
Sure, the Pacers did all that against a team missing Curry, but that's something Golden State must solve.
"It's tough to turn it on, especially when you're missing a guy like Steph," Shaun Livingston said. "We've got to challenge ourselves. Hopefully, that's how we can get this started."
Durant had 27 points, five rebounds and seven assists, and Thompson finished with 16 as Golden State's three-game winning streak ended.
The Warriors were never really close after the early moments of the second quarter.
Indiana pulled out to a 52-42 lead late in the second quarter, made it 62-51 at halftime and led by 21 during the third quarter before Golden State opened the fourth with 10 straight points to cut the deficit to 97-87.
Indiana answered with seven straight and closed it out with a 10-0 spurt.