Kristaps Porzingis returned to one of his former homes to score 30 points in 26 minutes, De’Anthony Melton chipped in with 27 and the Golden State Warriors handed the host Washington Wizards their 12th consecutive loss Monday night, 125-117.
Gui Santos added 18 points for the Warriors, who used 50.5% shooting from the field as the driving force in erasing a five-game losing streak in coach Steve Kerr’s 600th regular-season win.
Trae Young had 21 points in 21 minutes for the Wizards before sustaining a bruised right quad in the third quarter. He did not return, finishing with a team-high-tying five assists.
Playing the second night of a back-to-back, the Warriors led nearly all the way, often by double figures after a late 9-0 burst opened a 34-23 advantage at the end of the first quarter. Porzingis had a hand in seven of the points with a layup and assists on a Santos 3-pointer and a Brandin Podziemski layup.
Golden State led by as many as 17, but the Wizards would not go down without a fight. They rallied within 115-110 on a three-point play by Julian Reese with 4:29 left, and they retained a shot at 121-115 after two free throws by Bilal Coulibaly at the 2:24 mark.
However, Porzingis capped his highest-scoring game as a Warrior with a pair of free throws and Gary Payton II turned a Santos assist into a layup, opening a double-digit advantage again from which Washington couldn’t recover.
Payton finished with 15 points and Podziemski and Pat Spencer 10 apiece for the Warriors, ran up 32 assists on their 46 baskets. Draymond Green was the chief ball-distributor with a game-high seven assists to complement a game-high-tying eight rebounds.
Coulibaly and Will Riley matched Young’s 21 points for team-high scoring honors for the Wizards, who lost despite shooting 51.3%. Both Young and Coulibaly made 7 of 10 shots.
Tre Johnson added 13 points, Reese 12 and Tristan Vukcevic 11 for the Wizards, who haven’t won since Feb. 20. Riley tied Young for team assist honors with five, while Coulibaly and Anthony Gill equaled Green’s eight rebounds.
–Field Level Media
