"When the Warriors played the Lakers at the Staples Center this month, head coach Mark Jackson probably should have switched Dorell Wright off Kobe Bryant.

But the Warriors' small forward persuaded the coach to give him another chance.

"He said, 'Coach, I got him,' " Jackson said. "As a coach or a player, you want to hear that when you're in a foxhole with a guy. Even if he doesn't believe it, I want him to convince me that he believes it.

"It was refreshing to watch him step up."

That bravado didn't work out so well as Bryant torched the Warriors for 39 points in the Lakers' 97-90 victory. But the remnants of that confidence afforded Wright another shot at defending one of the league's top scorers in Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant on Friday night.

The NBA's back-to-back scoring champion shook off a slow start to score 37 points on 12-for-24 shooting and give the Thunder a 120-109 victory over the Warriors in the season's sixth sellout at Oracle Arena.

Durant took over in the fourth quarter, taking the ball to the basket and scoring 15 points. He had five in an 18-second span, including a one-handed throw-down of an alley-oop pass that gave Oklahoma City (16-3) a 97-86 lead over the Warriors (6-12) with 5:18 remaining."