When the clock is winding down, Stephen Curry is at his greatest. Irrespective of how far out he has to shoot from.
Curry hit his fifth three-pointer of the sport to beat the third-quarter buzzer and provides Golden State a lead towards the Minnesota Timberwolves. After Nickeil Alexander-Walker tied the sport with six seconds left, Curry weaved his method up the ground and, regardless of two defenders checking him, pulled up and sank a shot from simply throughout half-court, capping a 44-point quarter for his workforce.
Golden State caught with the larger and sooner Minnesota Timberwolves Sunday evening in a sport the place the Wolves shot a scorching 19-for-42 from behind the arc, getting threes from 9 totally different gamers. However the Warriors outrebounded the Wolves 45-39 and added eight steals, getting simply sufficient offense to eke out a 114-106 win.
A lot of the Warriors’ three-point manufacturing got here from Curry and Buddy Hield, who was inserted into the beginning lineup as a result of an damage to Andrew Wiggins and broke out of a taking pictures droop with a 7-for-13 evening. Hield’s final three was a dagger, giving Golden State a six-point lead with just below a minute to play.
Curry completed with 30 factors and 5 three-pointers within the win. The largest shock was that he received to the foul line for a season-high 11 free throws, although Curry uncharacteristically missed two of them. His mixture of driving and outdoors taking pictures confounded the Wolves and heart Rudy Gobert, who had solely 4 factors and 9 rebounds, getting outplayed by Warriors backup heart Kevon Looney, who had 12 factors and 9 boards in his 21 minutes.
The opposite key to the Warriors’ win was a powerful fourth quarter from Draymond Inexperienced, who picked up his fifth foul with 8:56 to go however stayed within the sport. He blocked a Jalen McDaniels layup seconds later and anchored a Warriors protection that held Minnesota to only 16 factors within the remaining quarter.
Inexperienced additionally iced the sport late on a pick-and-roll with Curry, the place the 6-foot-3 guard screened Gobert and received Inexperienced a wide-open dunk. Inexperienced was so elated that he did Curry’s patented “Night time Night time” celebration on his method again down the courtroom.
However that is what the specter of Curry’s lengthy bombs can do. Not solely did his outdoors taking pictures damage the Wolves, however having to ship two defenders out to chase him 30 ft from the basket left the center of the courtroom open. When he is making 38-footers, there is not any good choice on protection, and the Wolves had none Sunday evening.
