Stephen Curry delivered when the Golden State Warriors needed him most, scoring 35 points and burying a 29-foot 3-pointer with 51 seconds left Wednesday to push Golden State past the LA Clippers 126-121 in the 9-10 Play-In game at Intuit Dome. The Warriors closed on a 16-6 run after trailing 115-110 and rallying from a deficit that had reached 13 points in the fourth quarter.
Curry finished 12-of-23 from the field and made 7 of 12 shots from beyond the arc. He had only eight points in the first half after missing seven of his first nine attempts, but the finish turned the night into another postseason escape act for Golden State. Stephen Curry briefly left the bench in the first quarter with an apparent injury, then came back to take over late.
The result sends the Warriors to face the Phoenix Suns on Friday for the Western Conference’s No. 8 seed, with the winner advancing to meet the No. 1-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder. It also gives Golden State a path through a night that could have gone badly wrong if not for Curry’s final burst and Al Horford’s steady shooting, including four fourth-quarter 3-pointers as he finished with 14 points.
The late swing also came after a front-office move that had already changed the look of the roster. Just before February’s trade deadline, the Warriors acquired Kristaps Porziņģis from the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield, and he finished with 20 points, five rebounds and five assists in 28 minutes. But Porziņģis had struggled to find consistency on the floor and because of ongoing health issues during his brief stint with the Warriors, leaving Curry to carry the bigger burden when the game tightened.
For the Clippers, the loss ended their season and sent them to the offseason after they missed the postseason for the first time in four years. They had led by as many as 13 points in the fourth quarter and were still ahead by 13 with 9:53 remaining, only to watch the lead disappear again on a stage that has consistently troubled them. The Clippers also let another one slip away after twice doing so in 2022, and Wednesday’s collapse fit that pattern one more time.