Green Curry helps fuel Warriors escape

The level of fascination inspired by the way Golden State – even while moving beyond the best years of its core – keeps dragging itself through difficult moments not only refuses to fade, it seems to soar, like Jordan attacking the rim, on nights like this. What a way to compete. Writing them off too early only means accepting that the odds of your bet being wrong are high. They silenced an excited Inuit Dome crowd with a comeback that allows them to keep going, at least a few days longer, in what the Western Conference play-in has become. The Blazers are through. The Clippers are out. The remaining game will be between the Suns and these Warriors, who keep astonishing the basketball world. This time, more for resilience than for importance. Whatever the reason, they are still standing.

It was a Wednesday-into-Thursday night in California for a regional showdown between the ninth and 10th seeds in the West, the longest branch of the NBA’s play-in format. Those Clippers under Tyronn Lue, swaggering in after the huge rally that defined the final weeks of the regular season, head into vacation with a catastrophic loss on their home floor. Again, not because of the score or the opponent, but because of the way it happened. They had it in their hands. It slipped away like the bird in the saying. Final score: 126-121. Stephen Curry’s latest resurrection was sustained throughout by invaluable help from Al Horford on offense and Draymond Green on defense. New friends, old ideas.

The Clippers drowned in their own success. They had controlled much of the night and hit their high point at the start of the fourth quarter, the decisive stretch, when they built their biggest lead: 13 points with nine minutes left. That is why the fall hurts more – they were too high up when they came crashing down. Kawhi Leonard’s power was cut off at the root by Draymond Green, a brilliant villain in this performance, to the point that Leonard’s only two points in the final period came on a meaningless dunk with only seconds remaining.

Curry remains the symbol of Steve Kerr’s team, and not by accident. Kerr wrapped him in a heartfelt embrace at the end. You did it again, he seemed to say without using words. Thirty-five points in 36 minutes, seven 3-pointers, and one of them decisive in flipping the score. Beyond the players already mentioned, Podziemski deserves a nod with 17 points, while Kristaps Porzingis and Gui Santos each added 20. For Los Angeles, Bennedict Mathurin led the way with 23, while Darius Garland had 21 in what turned into a terrific game.

The Warriors lost their footing early and were forced to row upstream for more than three quarters. Only the most striking part of the comeback was the ending, because that was when the climb became steepest. That is only half the journey. The other half takes them to Phoenix, where they will face a Suns team furious after its loss to Tiago Splitter’s Trail Blazers just a few hours earlier. But the momentum of a team that has won four championships in 11 years is incredibly dangerous when it settles into its current form. Savor it.

Lue and his players had started sharply. Two role players, Kobe Sanders and Jordan Miller, helped build the lead with a 3-pointer each in the opening period, followed by another from Bennedict Mathurin that closed the quarter with Los Angeles ahead 31-22. Problems were growing on the other end too: Curry, after missing four of his first five shots, headed to the locker room and came back with his right knee wrapped; his other knee, the left one, had already kept him sidelined for two months. Nothing suggested how much good still awaited the Warriors.

Credit has to go where it belongs for the way Kerr and his staff handled the rotation, especially inside. Porzingis and Horford, who know each other from Boston, got minutes together – no small detail with Green assigned specifically to Kawhi Leonard, and what a performance that was, while Santos moved up to a position that is not his usual one. That should not get lost in the flood of numbers and reactions. They started chipping away, with Curry recovered from the discomfort, but they still were not doing major damage to a confident Clippers team. Plus-one in the second quarter. Plus-two in the third. They had only trimmed three points by the time the fourth began. Then the gap opened. Two trips to the free-throw line pushed the lead to 13: 98-85 with 9:53 left. The response came logically from deep – Santos and Curry – plus six more points from Porzingis. In a minute and a half they were within three. That was when they smelled blood. Garland turned fierce, but he was one of the few on his team who did not seem to feel the pressure. Leonard was done. Then Horford, at 39, stepped onstage and turned everything upside down again: four 3-pointers, not three and not five, in 3:25. A Dominican machine gun. And there were still more weapons to come.

Curry dribbled, gave it up, came off his usual screen action and buried a 3 from the right side. Three-point lead. But the Clippers had to do something to stop that avalanche, because the season was ending before their fans’ eyes. It was 120-117, and then came the first of Green’s two steals from Leonard, feeding the legend that he has been one of the greatest defenders in the history of the sport. On the inbounds play he smothered the pass and got a hand on it so Podziemski could score the layup. Then came a deflection in transition and another forced turnover. The usual men, in the usual hour.

Get closer to the game! Whether you like your soccer of the European variety or that on this side of the pond, our AS USA app has it all. Dive into live coverage, expert insights, breaking news, exclusive videos, and more. Plus, stay updated on NFL, NBA and all other big sports stories as well as the latest in current affairs and entertainment. Download now for all-access coverage, right at your fingertips – anytime, anywhere.

And there’s more: check out our TikTok and Instagram reels for bite-sized visual takes on all the biggest soccer news and insights.