By Barbara Mason

In a crazy game Saturday night the Golden State Warriors (35-31) beat the Los Angeles Lakers (36-32)128-121. Golden State welcomed the return of Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. Curry did not disappoint shooting for 31 points after a slow first quarter.

Game recap: While we did not get clarity in the opening quarter, Curry set the record straight shooting for 11 points in the second quarter. He was just getting warmed up in the first quarter and really began to heat up in the second.

The Lakers suffered a blow when Anthony Davis headed to the locker room in the first quarter. There was an apparent eye injury to Davis and when he did not return a more severe injury was suspected. The Lakers led after the first twelve minutes 36-30. Golden State answered back winning the second quarter 37-30. At halftime the Warriors were clinging to a 67-66 lead.

The Warriors continued to dominate winning the third quarter 35-27 leading 102-93 with one more quarter of basketball to be played. The absence of Davis had certainly cramped the Lakers style with most of the pressure on the shoulders of LeBron James.

The Warriors were doing a great job of protecting the ball with only six turnovers in the first half and mid-way through the fourth quarter not a single turnover in the second half for Golden State.

The Warriors had as much as a 12 point in the final quarter but the Lakers pulled too within four points with 5:26 left in the game. The Warriors had scored 50 points in the paint since the first quarter of this game with four minutes left on the clock.

With less than two minutes left in the game a barrage of reviews took center stage and this turned into the game that refused to end. 18 minutes elapsed with only 15 seconds coming off the clock.

Head Coach Steve Kerr could only shake his head in disbelief. At first some of the players were amused with the stoppages but it quickly turned into frustration with 20 minutes now elapsed with the shot clock malfunctioning. Curry, Klay Thompson and Jonathan Kuminga spearheaded the

Curry led the team with 31 points. Thompson was solid with 26 points off the bench and Kuminga continued his stellar play with 23 points. After the first quarter warm-up, Curry did not miss a beat. The Warriors are now tied for ninth place in the Western Conference.

Game notes: Saturday night the Golden State traveled down to Los Angeles taking on the Lakers. The two teams battled it out for the last play-in spots with the Warriors currently sitting in tenth place and the Lakers in ninth place in the Western Conference.

Both teams are in fact looking to move out of play-in position but with the season rapidly winding down there is not a whole lot of time to finish where they would ultimately like to finish. Golden State welcomed Stephen Curry and Draymond Green back into the lineup.

Green missed only their last game whereas Curry missed a couple of games. The Warriors lost to the Mavericks and beat the Spurs in Curry’s absence. After being sidelined for a couple of weeks how would Curry come back in this game? He did come back with a vengeance scoring 31 points. It looked like he never missed a game.

Monday night the Warriors will take on the New York Knicks at Chase Center. With only 16 games left on the season the Warriors have a fight ahead of them if they want to move up in the standings. Tipoff for this game is scheduled for 7:00 PM.