LOS ANGELES — — Stephen Curry scored 37 points, Brandin Podziemski added 28 and the Golden State Warriors beat the Los Angeles Lakers 123-116 on Thursday night for their fourth straight win in a potential first-round playoff preview.
Podziemski had a career-high eight 3-pointers on a night when Curry was 4 of 11 from long range. Curry was coming off a 52-point effort, including 12 3-pointers, at Memphis on Tuesday.
LeBron James led the Lakers with 33 points and nine assists. Austin Reeves added 31 points, including nine 3-pointers, Rui Hachimura had 24 points and Luke Doncic had 19 points, missing all six of his 3-point attempts.
Doncic’s basket in the final minute put the Lakers up 105-99. Curry and Podziemski hit back-to-back 3-pointers and James and Reeves answered with one of their own, cutting the Lakers to seven points.
James and Curry traded third-scoring runs as the Lakers closed within eight after trailing by 16 in the second quarter. James had 14 points to his team’s 12 in the early going. Curry scored 13 straight points and then made three free throws to send the Warriors into a fourth-place lead of 88-77.
Jonathan Kuminga added 18 points and nine rebounds off the bench for Golden State, which beat the Lakers for the first time in four games this season. The Warriors’ last win in L.A. was a year ago.
Warriors: They ended a six-game road trip — tied for the longest of the season — with a 4-2 mark. They are in a tight race to retain a top-six seed and avoid the play-in tournament with six games remaining.
Lakers: James made more than 11,000 points on 3-pointers as a Laker in the second quarter, becoming the 10th player in franchise history to do so.
Reeves made a 3-pointer out of timeout with the Lakers trailing 121-116 in the final seconds. But Doncic fouled Curry, who made both.
The Warriors won without needing Jimmy Butler, who had 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting. He averaged 17.3 and had 27 against Memphis.
The two teams finished back-to-back on Saturday. The Warriors host Denver and the Lakers host New Orleans.
With the Western Conference playoff picture quickly becoming clearer, the Golden State Warriors travel to Crypto.com Arena and take a 123-116 victory behind a combined 65 points from Curry and Podziemski. The win gives them sole possession of fifth place in the West.
It improves their record to 19-2 with Curry and Jimmy Butler in the lineup.
That deficit was as low as five with 4:37 left in the game, but the score remained comfortable for the Warriors on three straight possessions. Curry and James continue to work their way through, as do Podziemski and Austin Reeves.
Butler is now averaging 28.6 points per game since the trade.
The two teams have six games left in the regular season. When the playoffs begin tomorrow, they will play each other in the first round, a matchup that will make the NBA league office salivate.
