Furious comeback propels Warriors
After trailing by 20 in 4th, Golden State steals victory in OT
Golden State roars back in the fourth quarter, and takes a 3- 0 series lead over the New Orleans Pelicans with a 123- 119 overtime win. Down by 20 points after three quarters on the road, the Warriors tied the game with 2.8 seconds left on a three- point shot by Stephen Curry, right, then ground out the win in the extra period. Curry led all scorers with 40 points. The Warriors go for the sweep on Saturday night in New Orleans.
NEWORLEANS — The Warriors have astronomical goals this season, but even they admitted that their goal in coming to the Big Easy was to steal one of two games.
The heist won’t have to wait until Saturday.
The Warriors were seemingly blown away Thursday night by a Smoothie King Center crowd with four years of pent- up verve and a Pelicans team proving that its confidence isn’t audacious, but that story line didn’t include a chance for a miracle.
The Western Conference’s topseeded team came back from down 20 points at the start of the fourth quarter and down 10 with 2: 48
remaining to steal a 123- 119 overtime victory.
“We have something special with our team,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “We’re never out of the fight. They have great confidence. … They have a competitive fire to them that allows them to do things like this.”
The Warriors lead the teams’ best- of- seven, first- round series 3- 0, and Game 4 is at 5 p. m. Saturday in New Orleans. The Warriors join a list of 111 teams that have taken 3- 0 leads in best- of- seven series, and the first 110 went on to claim the series.
In the Warriors’ first 358 attempts at coming back from a 20- point, fourth- quarter deficit, they failed. But this team is different from other squads that have played for this franchise.
After the Warriors built a six- point lead in overtime on an Andrew Bogut dunk, a Tyreke Evans layup and a Ryan Anderson three- pointer trimmed the Pelicans’ deficit to 119- 118 with 1: 11 remaining. The teams traded wasted possessions before Stephen Curry was sent to the free- throw line for two automatic ones and a 121- 118 lead with 13.8 ticks on the clock.
The Warriors fouled Anthony Davis away from ball, sending him to the line for one shot, which he made, and allowing New Orleans to inbound the ball trailing 121- 119 with 10.9 seconds left. Davis missed a layup off the left side of the backboard and against Bogut’s tough defense with 4.9 seconds remaining, and Klay Thompson grabbed a rebound that sent much of the crowd scurrying for the exits.
“I just thought it was a miracle that we had another chance,” Kerr said.
The end of regulation gave the Warriors that second chance. Curry, who scored 17 points in the game’s final 10: 50, knocked down a top- of- the- key threepointer with 11.8 seconds left in regulation to cut the Warriors’ deficit to 107- 105. Fans started chanting “M- V- P” for Davis as he missed one of two free throws and left the door open for the league’s best three- point shooting team with 9.6 seconds remaining.
Curry missed his first attempt to tie it, but Marreese Speights got the offensive rebound back to Curry in the corner. Given a second chance, he tied it up with 2.8 seconds left. Evans’ double- clutch floater from 30 feet clanged off the back rim to send the game into overtime.
Thompson called Curry’s shot “amazing” and “one of the biggest of Steph’s career.”
“That’s as good as it gets, a three- pointer with two seconds left,” Kerr said. “To make that shot, it shows everything Steph is about — even on a night when he wasn’t having a great shooting performance. His confidence level is just off the charts. He’s fearless.”
Curry finished with 40 points and nine assists, Thompson added 28 points on 6- of- 12 threepoint shooting, and Draymond Green had 12 points and 17 rebounds before fouling out.
Davis led New Orleans with 29 points and 15 rebounds, Anderson came off the bench for 26 points, and Evans added 19 points and eight assists — numbers that could have been more than enough to get the Warriors to fold.
“It was just determination and will,” Green said. “We have a group of guys whose competitive spirits are through the roof. We never give up. If we see something we want, we do anything in our power to go get it — no matter what the situation.”
The situation was ugly. The Warriors blew an eight- point lead in the first quarter and watched the Pelicans put together a 19- 0 run spanning the first and second quarters. The Warriors went into halftime trailing by 11.
Things got worse, as the Pelicans extended their lead to 89- 69 on a Dante Cunningham dunk with 11.7 seconds left in the third. But the Warriors clawed back into it, won and now want more.
“Absolutely,” Green said. “To get this game, it’s like, ‘ Let’s come out and throw some blows now.’ The mind- set definitely changes. We want to come out and get the sweep now.”