The 2-Man Game: A 50-point quarter sends a serious message to the league
Rockets Rundown
Mario Elie and Joel Blank
25 April 2018
Scoring 50 points in a single quarter during the regular season is an amazing feat, but doing it against quality teams in the playoffs puts the rest of the NBA on notice. The Rockets hope to get big contributions again tonight from Eric Gordon and Trevor Ariza as Houston looks to advance to the second round of the playoffs with a win over Minnesota.
Stephen Curry scored 31 points and the Golden State Warriors built a huge lead and held on to beat the Houston Rockets 95-85 on Sunday night in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series.
The seventh-seeded Warriors led by 23 in the third quarter, but second-seeded Houston cut it to 69-60 entering the fourth.
A basket by Amen Thompson with about 5 1/2 minutes remaining got the Rockets within four. Curry hit his fifth 3-pointer of the night a few seconds later to make it 82-75.
The Rockets cut it to four again with about 2 1/2 minutes left on a 3 by Fred VanVleet. This time Moses Moody hit a 3-pointer to start a 7-0 run that made it 91-80 and sent fans streaming for the exits.
Game 2 of the best-of seven series is Wednesday night in Houston.
It was the 100th career playoff coaching victory for Golden State’s Steve Kerr, who moved into a tie with Larry Brown for sixth-most playoff wins.
Curry was 12 of 19 from the field, hitting 5 of 9 3-pointers. Jimmy Butler added 25 points, seven rebounds, six assists and five steals in his playoff debut for the Warriors after joining them in a trade from Miami in February.
The Rockets, who returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2020, got 26 points from Alperen Sengun in his first career postseason game. But VanVleet and Jalen Green struggled, making just 7 of 34 shots.
VanVleet was 2 of 13 from 3-point range on a night Houston made just 6 of 29 3-pointers and was 11 of 20 on free throws.
The Warriors got a spot in the playoffs with a 121-116 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday night in the Play-In Tournament.
They got yet another playoff victory over the Rockets after eliminating them four times from 2015-19.