The Thunder finished off a five-game homestand Monday night by hitting a pair of thresholds that usually mean success. They are 9-0 when scoring at least 100 this season and 9-1 when holding the opposition to less than 90. Both occurred in a 104-88 victory over Golden State, which also happened to score its fewest points this season. Thunder coach Scott Brooks focused on the defensive effort three nights after his team was routed by Boston.
"Well, we gutted out that win," he said. "We didn't have our best stuff and they had some players that were missing, but we competed. And it's not always going to be pretty basketball, but defensively I thought we got after it.
"It's one of the highest-scoring teams in basketball and we held them to 88 points, kept the field-goal percentage down low. The last two games it wasn't good, 56 and 50 percent the last two games, so tonight was good. We held them to 43 percent."
THUNDER 104, WARRIORS 88: Kevin Durant scored 28 and the Thunder held the league's highest-scoring team to 39 second-half points Monday night at the Ford Center. The Thunder improved to 11-9 and completed a challenging five-game homestand at 3-2.
Rookie guard James Harden scored a career-high 26 points off the bench and Jeff Green added 21 points and 13 boards, giving the Thunder three players with at least 20 points. Durant also had nine rebounds. Russell Westbrook scored 12.
The Thunder won despite shooting just 42.2 percent. The Warriors, playing without several key players because of injuries, were held to 43.3 percent shooting. Monta Ellis led all scorers with 31 points.
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