“There’s obviously a lot of excitement, but we still have one job to do”.
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The Warriors saved their season with a 120-111 win Thursday night in Oakland.
That was just the way Kerr diagrammed it, and that’s the sign of a coach and a team that has a style… but also can improvise smoothly and suddenly in the times of greatest peril.
Durant led the Thunder with 27 points, hitting 10 of his 19 shots and three of his seven 3-point attempts.
The Thunder, who blew a number of fourth-quarter leads during the regular season, fell apart in the final minutes after Golden State had gone ahead. The Warriors’ Barnes (24) and Thunder coach Billy Donovan (51) celebrated birthdays Monday. “We got a little stagnant coming down the stretch”. The Warriors had an answer for every Oklahoma City run.
Since the start of the 2015 postseason, the Warriors are 17-3 SU and 12-8 ATS in 20 playoff home games per the OddsShark NBA Database.
Kerr had to go stars vs. stars, and even though Kerr prefers to keep his main players under 40 minutes, he played Green played 43 minutes, Curry 41 and Thompson 40.
The Thunder better hope Durant does figure things out before Monday’s winner-take-all game. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, it was a 3-1 hole after the Warriors went on the road and suffered crushing 133-105 and 118-94 losses.
Westbrook lost control of the ball, and after Thompson missed a 3, Westbrook turned the ball over again. Westbrook turned it over one more time, and Golden State was in the clear.
“We can’t walk into shootaround, into the breakfast meeting and be upset”, Durant said.
One can see how a blown 3-1 lead could do irreparable damage not only to Durant’s legacy, but perhaps to the Thunder’s chances of keeping the gang together. Now, they must conquer one of the best home crowds in the league and counter the momentum that the Warriors have after winning back-to-back to tie the series.
Durant, on the other hand, insists they need to stick to their game plan.
“To be in this situation – people were doubting us”, Green said.
“Win or go home”.
Westbrook had 11 assists and one turnover in the first three quarters and zero assists and four turnovers in the fourth.
“If we thought tonight was hard, Game 7’s going to be even tougher”, he said. We’re excited about that. “We get another opportunity”. So we want to hang in there. “We’ve got another game to play”.
The Warriors were beaten 126-121 by the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of that year’s play-offs, with Curry scoring 33 points. Green committed three fouls in the first half and finished with five….
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Thompson hit six 3-pointers to account for nearly all of his 21 points, helping Golden State outscore Oklahoma City 51-21 on long-distance shots.
