The Portland Trail Blazers were unable to complete a sweep of the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night, and Stephen Curry was to blame.
From start to finish, he played like the two-time MVP that he is while scoring a career-high 62 points. Clearly, Golden State entered the game with an attitude after getting rocked Friday night, and the Blazers had no answer.
“They played a lot better, and Steph Curry played an outstanding game,” Portland coach Terry Stotts said. “That’s an understatement.”
Damian Lillard said his team knew defeating the Warriors twice in back-to-back games on their home court would be a challenge. As he put it, the Warriors were going to play with pride in the second meeting after falling 123-98 on Friday.
“We expected it,” Lillard said. “I thought we played hard. We competed and they did some things better than us tonight, and obviously Steph had a huge night. He’s a great player. He had it going. And their team fed off that.”
The rest of Golden State’s roster played much better with Andrew Wiggins scoring 21 and Kelly Oubre contributing 17. But Curry, who had 26 on Friday, simply raised his game to a different level and Portland had no answer.
“He did a little bit of everything,” Stotts said. “I mean, he penetrated the lane, he was 10-for-15 from twos, got to the free throw line, obviously he shot some threes. He had 31 at half and he only made three threes. So, he scored a variety of ways. When we tried to get the ball out of his hands, he’s able to get it back in his hands. It was a great performance by a great player.”
WHAT IT MEANS
The Blazers failed to close on an opportunity to return home at 4-2 with two mediocre opponents coming up. However, the Blazers just completed the toughest six-game stretch of the first half of their season at 3-3. But Lillard didn’t quite look at it that way.
“We felt like we could have come out of this better off than we did,” Lillard said.
He lamented the opening night loss at home to Utah and said the team really wanted to go home 4-2.
“I think that would have been perfect for us, but we came up short,” Lillard said.
IT WAS OVER WHEN …
Portland trailed 119-111 with 2:50 remaining when Wiggins made a three-pointer from the left corner to push the Warriors’ lead to 122-111.
The Warriors led 127-114 with 1:28 remaining when Oubre and CJ McCollum traded two-point field goals. Then, Curry launched a deep three that made the score 132-116 with about minute remaining. Seconds later, he hit another three to make it 135-116.
Golden State led 97-83 entering the fourth quarter.
SHOWED UP AND SHOWED OUT
Portland center Enes Kanter came off the bench to score 24 points with 12 rebounds. He made 8 of 12 field goals.
Lillard made 6 of 15 three-pointers and 10 of 24 from the field for 32 points, but he committed five turnovers.
McCollum made just 2 of 8 three-pointers but finished with 28 points, nine rebounds and five assists.
Curry shook off a mediocre performance Friday and established himself right away in this one. For the night, he shot 18 of 31 from the field and 8 of 16 from three-point range.
“Well, it was just a brilliant performance,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “We’ve seen Steph do so many things here over the years and so many amazing nights at Oracle and now here at Chase Center. It’s just a privilege to coach him. It really is. Not just because of his talent, but because of the way he carries himself and the way he leads. We are incredibly blessed as an organization to have Steph leading the way. What a performance tonight.”
SHOWED UP AND FIZZLED
Forward Carmelo Anthony, who scored 18 on Friday, had 10 points Sunday while going 2 of 8 from the field.
Center Jusuf Nurkic finished with seven points and six rebounds. He shot 3 of 10 from the field. His mediocre play led to Stotts sticking with Kanter more in the second half.
NEXT UP (Blazers schedule)
The Blazers start a two-game home stand Tuesday night against Chicago (3-4) before hosting Minnesota (2-4) on Thursday.
-- Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress(Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress(Facebook).
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