By Diamond Leung / San Jose Mercury News
OAKLAND, California—Stephen Curry looked into the Oracle Arena crowd and punched the air after having ended the cookout between him and James Harden.
Harden crumpled to the floor and buried his head, his last-second opportunity to win the game dashed.
The Golden State Warriors edged the Houston Rockets in a nail-biting 99-98 win in Game Two of the Western Conference finals on Thursday to take a 2-0 lead in the series. Curry in the end brought along a friend in Klay Thompson to seal it, as they forced Harden to lose the ball just before the buzzer.
“Two guys who get a lot of credit for their offense made the best defensive play,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said.
“They call it a home-run trot when you kind of jog back. That was a championship trot right there. Everybody sprinted back and got into position and made a play.”
Harden scored a game-high 38 points, but Curry poured in 33 points and got the win after the Warriors blew a 17-point lead.
The slugfest saw the top 2 finishers in the Most Valuable Player race each go 13-for-21 from the field, but the Rockets’ final charge was met with a defensive stand.
Harden grabbed a rebound with 6.9 seconds left, but on the other end of the court, the Splash Brothers had him surrounded. The ball was fumbled away, leaving Harden on his knees, exasperated that he wasn’t able to attempt a shot.
“It’s just don’t let him get a shot off and try to be the hero,” Curry said of the defense.
Harden knocked down a curtain in frustration on his way back to the locker room and later said, “It hurts, but they did what they had to do. They won two games at home.”
Pressure on Curry forced the Warriors into an eight-second backcourt violation with the Warriors leading by three points. Harden then tossed an alley-oop thrown down by Dwight Howard to make it 99-98 with 33 seconds left.
Howard finished with 19 points and 17 rebounds playing with a brace two days after spraining his left knee, but it wasn’t enough as the Warriors brought muscle with them, as well. Andrew Bogut, who, at one point, had his mouth bloodied by Howard, had 14 points, eight rebounds, five blocks and four assists.
“This was more of a street fight, more of a traditional game involving big guys protecting the rim and hard fouls and blocked shots,” Warriors Coach Steve Kerr.
Curry went to work in the fourth, scoring on a layup five seconds after checking back into the game. Harden hit a floater to cut the lead to 89-85.
Curry found Thompson on an inbound pass for the layup to make it 91-85.
Curry followed with a fadeaway jumper. After Harden’s three-pointer, Curry dished to Bogut, who scored as he was being fouled to make it 96-89. Curry’s stepback jumper made it 98-90 to seemingly seal the win with 1:39 left before Harden scored six straight points to make it close.
“It doesn’t matter if James has 40 or five [points],” Thompson said. “It’s whether we win or lose.”
For a moment in the second quarter, Andre Iguodala delivered the powerful message that the Warriors were coming, and there was little the Rockets could do to stop them. He soared before throwing down a dunk off a stolen inbound pass. The hobbled Howard could only step aside at the sight of Iguodala elevating.
The slam was part of a 12-0 run that pushed the lead to 16 at a time in the game when Curry was on the bench. Harrison Barnes’s three-pointer pushed the lead to 17, and the Warriors were feeling confident, as they entered the game 53-0 this season when opening up leads of at least 15 points.
But the Rockets responded to the gut punch by erasing that deficit over the final seven minutes of the quarter as they closed the first half on a 23-6 run capped by an alley-oop to Howard that tied the score at 55. Harden scored 12 straight points at one point, and then came out in the third quarter and hit a three-pointer to give Houston its first lead.
The Rockets took a 65-59 lead before the Warriors responded with a 12-2 run, highlighted by a monster dunk from Thompson and Curry hitting his fifth three-pointer.
Curry had spent the better part of the first quarter making things look easy for Golden State. Given open looks, Curry was four-for-six from three-point range, racking up 15 points to give the Warriors a 36-28 lead.
Warriors turnovers enabled the Rockets to stay within striking distance. Golden State committed seven of them in the quarter, leading to 11 points for Houston. By halftime, the Warriors were up to 11 turnovers due in large part to sloppy passing.
Image credits: AP