The Golden State Warriors successfully closed out the Portland Trail Blazers Wednesday night in Oakland on an evening that began with Stephen Curry receiving his second consecutive Most Valuable Player Award. The MVP talk didn’t end with the presentation, as Curry strung together a reel of highlight plays on his way to 29 points and 11 assists. The Warriors will now look ahead to facing the winner of the Thunder/Spurs series in the Western Conference Finals.
Typical of the past few contests, Damian Lillard and the Blazers came out to an early lead thanks to two 10-0 runs throughout the first half. Despite trailing by double digits, Curry and his teammates found a way to fight back late in the fourth as they have so many times this season. In a battle of the star backcourts, it was Golden State who proved most effective with 62 points on Klay Thompson’s 13/17 field goal shooting compared to Portland’s C.J. McCollum and Damian Lillard dropping 55. Klay and Steph aim to continue this hot streak into the next round.
Maintaining team health is key in the playoffs, although the recent trend among the Warriors’ players has been discouraging. Andrew Bogut exited tonight’s game in the first half with an apparent strained right adductor injury. His status has yet to be commented on by team officials. This is coming just one game after Stephen Curry rejoined his team from a two-week hiatus dealing with a knee ailment to the tune of 17 in overtime, breaking yet another NBA record during his historic year.
Draymond Green posted a full statline of 13/11/6 to join his two Splash Brother teammates in capping off one of the most highly-contested 4-1 series in recent history. On the other side, Blazer role players Al-Farouq Aminu and Maurice Harkless cashed in 16 and 13, respectively. Allen Crabbe accompanied those performances with 20 points of his own from the bench.
The Dubs will wait to matchup against either the San Antonio Spurs or Oklahoma City Thunder next week in the Western Conference Finals.
Check out Steph Curry doing Steph Curry things below:
