{"id":471778,"date":"2025-12-26T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T01:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/471778\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T01:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T01:00:11","slug":"stephen-curry-jimmy-butler-lead-the-way-as-warriors-beat-mavericks-126-116-on-christmas-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/471778\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler lead the way as Warriors beat Mavericks 126-116 on Christmas Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO<\/strong> \u2013 Stephen Curry scored 23 points and knocked down a key 3-pointer with 3:45 left to help seal it, Jimmy Butler added 14 points, nine assists and nine rebounds, and the Golden State Warriors beat the Dallas Mavericks 126-116 on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Mavericks rookie star Cooper Flagg had 27 points on 13-for-21 shooting, six rebounds and five assists in his Christmas Day debut while Brandon Williams scored 26 off the bench.<\/p>\n

Klay Thompson returned to face his former Warriors team in the holiday matinee after missing Tuesday’s home game against the Nuggets with soreness in his left knee.<\/p>\n

And former Splash Brother Curry kept sneaking a peak of Thompson’s warmup before they met at midcourt for a greeting and embrace. Thompson received a warm ovation when he entered the game for the first time with 5:51 remaining in the opening quarter.<\/p>\n

Mavericks center Anthony Davis didn’t return<\/a> after exiting in the second quarter with groin spasms. Davis had three points, three rebounds and two blocked shots in 11 minutes.<\/p>\n

Draymond Green started and contributed seven points and five rebounds playing in foul trouble two days after he and coach Steve Kerr had a heated exchange<\/a> during a third-quarter timeout against Orlando \u2014 with both later apologizing to each other.<\/p>\n

Golden State started 0 for 6 from 3-point range before the Mavericks even attempted their first shot from deep. Moses Moody connected at the 6:05 mark of the first quarter and that helped the Warriors get going \u2014 along with Al Horford.<\/p>\n

Horford returned from a seven-game absence because of sciatica in his right leg. He came in at the 5:27 mark of the first and made all four of his 3-pointers as the Warriors led 40-28 after one quarter. He finished with 14 points, De’Anthony Melton scored 16 and Brandin Podziemski contributed 13 points, eight rebounds and four assists off the bench.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

The Mavericks play at Sacramento on Saturday while the Warriors hit the road to face Toronto on Sunday.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Stephen Curry scored 23 points and knocked down a key 3-pointer with 3:45 left to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":471779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28878,6272,105764,23294,2494,173947,2389,3360,3364,145063,1260,62,3366,18767,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-471778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-al-horford","9":"tag-anthony-davis","10":"tag-brandin-podziemski","11":"tag-brandon-williams","12":"tag-cooper-flagg","13":"tag-deanthony-melton","14":"tag-draymond-green","15":"tag-jimmy-butler","16":"tag-klay-thompson","17":"tag-moses-moody","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-stephen-curry","21":"tag-steve-kerr","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115783167136337177","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}