San Francisco – Stephen Curry threw up an insane three-point shot in overtime that put away the Boston Celtics for good. The Celtics dominated the entire game until late in the fourth, Curry and company forced Boston to overtime and walked away with the 132-126 victory recording their third consecutive win.
“Saw the whole play unfold,” said Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. “Chris (Paul) ended up with the rebound, or the loose ball, whatever that was, and I saw him look up at the shot clock because that’s what great point guards do and he saw Steph, like he glanced at the shot clock and saw Steph across the court. So, Chris knew he had enough time. Nothing shocks me with Steph. That shot was insane. The catch-and-shoot, the arch. But I fully expected it to go in and I think our fans did too. The guy’s magical. You can’t explain it. It’s just the kind of stuff he does.”
Paul bounce pass to Curry with .12 seconds on the clock in overtime allowed Curry to drop a 3-point shot from high in the air that saw nothing but net. A play that you see Curry typically do in pregame warmups but this time it was even more spectacular to close out the Celtics that dominated most of the game.
“It’s tough because there was a split-second decision once he got the ball to one dribble and had to figure out an angle while the shot clock was running down,” Curry said. “I saw him right as he got the ball and kind of locked eyes because I had my hands up. But when he took the extra dribble, I lost sight of him and the ball was kind of coming on time, on target. I was able to get my feet underneath me and then it was just a rhythm shot at that point. So, it was a hell of a play just knowing that we needed to get a shot up and he made the right decision. Twelve assists, 0 turnovers, a master at that.”
Curry played with five fouls scored 33 points (20 in the fourth and OT), rookie Tracy Jackson-Davis recorded a double-double, 10 points and 13 rebounds. Klay Thompson recorded his third game scoring 20-or-more points and Jonathan Kuminga scored 17 points and grabbed 7 boards.
“Well, he was tremendous,” said Kerr on Jackson-Davis tonight. “He was the player of the game. There were several huge plays, obviously Steph’s (Curry) shot probably being number one, but Trayce’s block on Jaylen Brown. But Trayce was the guy who shifted everything, plus-25 in his minutes. The second great game in a row. You can see the impact he makes. So, he’s going to play, he’s going to be in the lineup.”
Jackson-Davis recorded his first career double-double, he’s averaging 12.0 points and 10.5 rebounds a game over the last two games. Paul had 12 assists with no turnovers, his third game this season with 10-or-more assists and no turnovers matching Muggsy Bogues (1997-1998) and Tim Hardaway (1990-1991) in a single season in a franchise history.
Golden State trailed by 17 points and won the game, marking their biggest comeback win of the season. The Warriors bench outscored the opponent’s reserves in 23 of 27 games this season, including the last seven contests (50-27 tonight). Golden State also made 20-plus three’s and was shy of tying a season-high 21.
Boston dominated the entire game on both ends of the floor. Neemias Queta grabbed 10 rebounds and Al Horford scored 13 points and had 12 rebounds. Derrick White added 38 points and Jaylen Brown had 28 points. Despite their efforts, the Celtics ran out of gas in the final minutes of OT.
“We missed 20 layups in that game and 41 threes,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzula said. “They went on their run in the non-Curry minutes, and they did a good job of getting offensive rebounds, playing in transition. When you play against a team like that, as much as you focus on their stars, the margins are important. So, we lost the lead in transitions and offensive rebounds. I thought we got great looks the entire night and we just didn’t make them.”
“Yeah, we definitely had plenty of chances to win this game,” said Brown. “We missed a lot of shots, missed some easy shots at the rim, a lot of wide-open looks. But I feel like we kind of settled at times, we could have been more aggressive getting to the paint, we settled for a lot of threes. Just a good game by them, give credit to them. We lost this game for sure.”
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