Faried ‘much better’ after neck injury against Warriors

Stephen Curry is a huge piece of the Golden State Warriors, but Green is the glue that holds the team together.

The Golden State Warriors recorded their first win of 2016 on Saturday night, but it was hard to find a smile anywhere in the building afterward.

Thompson finished with 26 points despite 2-for-9 shooting from beyond the 3-point arc, and backup guard Ian Clark had 15 for Golden State (31-2).

Following the Nuggets’ overtime loss to the Warriors, forward Kenneth Faried had to leave Oracle Arena in a stretcher after colliding with a teammate and apparently hurting his neck. Now riding a three-game losing streak, the Hornets are also just 3-7 in their last 10 games, desperate to end their slump.

Faried took an elbow to the back of the neck while fighting for a rebound late in overtime. Power forward Draymond Green helped fill the void with a triple double of 29 points, 17 rebounds and 14 assists.

Thunder 109, Hornets 90: Kevin Durant had 29 points and 11 rebounds, and Oklahoma City pulled away in the second half to beat Charlotte.

The loss was Denver’s fifth straight and extended Golden State’s home winning streak to 34 consecutive games. The Warriors are considering Curry day-to-day and will take things slowly with the star, who managed five points in 14 minutes on Saturday.

Nuggets: PG Emmanuel Mudiay, who missed his 11th straight game as he recovers from a sprained right ankle, could be back within five to seven days to take pressure off 12th-year veteran Jameer Nelson. He said the odds were against them and the players, who played at least forty minutes, were able to get stops in the game and fight through fatigue.

We won’t waste a lot of digital ink charting out the Byzantine complexity involved in trying to quantify a given player’s value to his team, or revisiting the old familiar arguments about which major factors should weigh more heavily than others when it comes to awarding the league’s most prestigious individual accolade, i.e. the NBA MVP trophy. Veteran forward Tim Duncan returned to action after sitting out three games and posted a dubious career first – failing to score a point for the first time in his 1,598-game regular-season and playoff career. Joked Walton: “I told ’em I can give ’em 4 good minutes tonight.”…

“He’s doing more and more”, Walton said. It was nice to see Curry healthy and back on the court where he belongs. He enjoys playing in front of his father, upstaging “Dell Curry Night” in Charlotte on December 2 by scoring 40 points in three quarters in a 116-99 victory.