Curry’s big night evens Warriors’ series with Thunder
Curry’s big night evens Warriors’ series with Thunder
After witnessing Warriors fans panic for more than 48 hours, Stephen Curry managed to erase the anxiety in a matter of two minutes Wednesday night.
The back-to-back MVP scored 15 points of his team-high 28 points during a thrilling third-quarter sequence that evened the Warriors’ Western Conference finals series against the Thunder with a 118-91 victory at Oracle Arena.
Concern seemingly swept over the Warriors’ fan base after the team blew a 14-point, second-half lead in Game 1 on Monday.
[...] Curry made sure those emotions didn’t linger, draining two three-pointers and four three throws in one minute, 58 seconds to give the Warriors a 20-point, third-quarter cushion.
[...] the crowd at Chesapeake Energy Arena won’t matter much if Curry looks as locked in as he did Wednesday.
Despite playing on a right knee that is still hurting, the point guard tried to get his teammates involved for much of the first half, before deciding simply take over himself.
[...] Curry poured in 17 third-quarter points that would have been more than enough to rile up the gold-clad crowd - even without him imploring them to rise during the offensive onslaught.
The Warriors never trailed by more than one point and led by as many as 35 as Klay Thompson added 15 points to Curry’s brilliance, Draymond Green piled up 10 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, and Harrison Barnes chipped in 11 points and six rebounds.
The Warriors’ bench responded to a rough first game, getting 14 points from Andre Iguodala, 13 from Marreese Speights and 12 points from Festus Ezeli to outscore the Oklahoma City reserves 50-29.
Curry didn’t take his second shot until the 4:55 mark of the first quarter, but he then scored nine points in a 75-second flurry to give the Warriors a 22-16 lead.
The Warriors’ reserves, who were outscored by 17 points in Game 1, extended their lead to 35-26 with 9:11 remaining in the second quarter.
[...] Kevin Durant, who had a game-high 29 points, made back-to-back three-pointers to trim the Thunder’s deficit to 35-32 at the 8:11 mark.
Oklahoma City took its first lead of the second quarter on a three-pointer from Dion Waiters with fewer than two minutes remaining in the first half.
Behind seven points from Iguodala, including a no-look layup, the Warriors outscored the Thunder 11-2 in the final 1:47 to take a 57-49 lead into the break.
After being shut out from the three-point line in the second quarter, Barnes connected on one three minutes into the third quarter and seemingly opened the floodgates for Curry.
Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
E-mail: rsimmons@sfchronicle.com Twitter:
West finals
Warriors
All games on TNT
Thunder 108, Warriors 102
Warriors 118, Thunder 91
May 26: at Oracle Arena, 6 p.m.*
May 28: at Okla.
May 30: at Oracle Arena, 6 p.m.*
After a loss
The Warriors haven’t lost back-to-back games this year, improving to 12-0 after a defeat with an average margin of victory of 16.0 points.
Score
Top scorer
SA
* Playoffs