Warriors at Grizzlies
The defending champion Golden State Warriors have yet to suffer a loss this season and are chasing some franchise history. The Warriors can match the 1960-61 Philadelphia Warriors for the best start to a season if they find a way around the host Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday.
Slipping past the Grizzlies was not much of a problem for Golden State on Nov. 2, when it posted its most impressive win of the young season with a 119-69 demolition. Memphis, which took the Warriors to six games in the Western Conference semifinals last spring, bounced back with a win at Sacramento the next night but finished up its road trip with three straight losses. Golden State continues to win big and picked up a 109-95 victory over the Detroit Pistons on Monday as the second unit stepped up and put the game away in the fourth quarter. “Our second unit, we feel, is the best in the NBA,” interim coach Luke Walton told reporters. “We’ve got great chemistry and we’ve got veterans who know how to win. When they give us that type of performance, it just makes us that much more dangerous.”
TV: 8 p.m. ET, CSN Bay Area (Golden State), FSN Southeast (Memphis)
ABOUT THE WARRIORS (8-0): Steph Curry has slowed a bit from the superhuman pace he set in the first six games, but the bench has picked up the slack. Andre Iguodala scored 13 points and Leandro Barbosa added 10 in 14 minutes against the Pistons, but fellow reserve Shaun Livingston downplayed Walton’s postgame boast. "I don't get into numbers,” Livingston told reporters. “I don't get into best bench. I don't get into any of that. My job is to come out and relieve Steph."
ABOUT THE GRIZZLIES (3-5): Memphis suffered another loss on Monday but at least forced its style on the Los Angeles Clippers for most of the night in a 94-92 setback. “We played Grizzlies basketball," forward Zach Randolph told reporters. "If we play like that, keep playing like that, we'll get back to our old selves. A loss is a loss but we've got to take the positives, the energy, the defense, the things we did well." That defense was nowhere to be found on Nov. 2, when the Warriors shot 51.2 percent from the field and knocked down 11 3-pointers.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Warriors C Andrew Bogut (concussion) returned from a six-game absence on Monday and came off the bench.
2. Randolph is 34-of-57 from the floor in the four games since struggling to 2-of-9 against the Warriors.
3. Golden State G Klay Thompson hit four 3-pointers in each of the last three games.