Warriors late comeback ousts Denver behind Curry and Payton

BY DANIEL GLUSKOTER

The Golden State Warriors came up big in the fourth quarter, erasing an eight point deficit behind the play of Steph Curry and Gary Payton II to clinch their first round playoff series against the gritty Denver Nuggets 102–98 at Chase Center Wednesday night.

The win gave the Warriors the series in five games, their first playoff win since moving from Oakland three years ago in the 2019 Western Conference finals and their first representing San Francisco since the 1967-68 season. Golden State will now rest up while awaiting the winner of the Memphis-Minnesota series to determine their second round opponent.

Denver had taken a 78–70 lead after three behind the solid play at the center from the duo of Nikola Jokić and DeMarcus Cousins. Jokić, the reigning MVP and a front runner for this year‘s award, had another monster game with 30 points, 19 rebounds and eight assists. Meanwhile Cousins, the former Warrior, put in 19 points himself, mostly while Jokić was on the bench in foul trouble.

The Warriors outscored the Nuggets 32-20 in the fourth behind 11 points from Curry and 10 from Payton. Curry finished with a game-high tying 30 points with Payton adding a playoff-career high 15. Klay Thompson also scored 15 for Golden State along with a a team-high nine rebounds.

Draymond Green, starting at center in place of Kevon Looney to allow the Warriors to field a starting lineup featuring Curry, Thompson and Jordan Poole for the first time, held his own against the taller Jokić, totaling 11 points and six assists while only gathering three fouls.

Asked about being down eight points going into the fourth quarter, Green said, ” I think we definitely took the intensity to another level. Not going to sit here and act like our coaching staff wasn’t incredible about going to that box and one, that really threw their rhythm off. Once you get a team out of rhythm, then you go to your man-to-man defense, you have a lot better chance than just guarding a team that has their rhythm. So I thought that was great by our coaching staff, and guys focused and capitalized on it.”

Golden State coach Steve Kerr added, “I think it’s been three years since we’ve been in the playoffs and you kind of forget how difficult close out games are and I think our guys felt that the entire way. Denver, they had nothing to lose. They played really well for three quarters. But eight points is nothing. That’s what I said to the team. Eight points is just a couple of minutes with two or three stops in a row and a couple buckets and we’re right there and I think we felt that playoff pressure for the first time in a few years, and our guys responded. But to be honest, for three quarters, our main guys, Steph, Draymond, Klay, maybe they had forgotten a little bit about how difficult it is to close out a series.”

A Grizzlies win on Friday would result in the Warriors opening the second round in Memphis on Sunday afternoon. If the Timberwolves come back to win the final two games Golden State would hold the home court advantage against Minnesota with the series starting in San Francisco next week.

GAME NOTES:

Kerr is now 19-2 in playoff series, with both losses coming in the NBA Finals. The Warriors advanced to their seventh conference semifinal in the last 10 seasons, the only team to achieve that feat.

Curry averaged 28.0 points in the series with Game 5 being his only start. He also passed Julius Erving (3,088) for 24th place on the NBA’s all-time postseason points list.

Golden State improved to 19-8 in series-clinching games dating back to 2015.

The Warriors shot 51.5% from the field in the five game series.