The Golden State Warriors brushed off the unsettling absence of injured star Stephen Curry on Wednesday to demolish the Houston Rockets and advance to the next round of the NBA playoffs.
The Warriors’ hopes of successfully defending their NBA crown received a blow on Sunday after Curry was sidelined for at least two weeks with a sprained knee ligament.
However, they did enough in a 114-81 rout of the Rockets to remind the pretenders to their crown that they remain a formidable outfit even without their talisman.
The 4-1 series victory means the Warriors are to next face either the Portland Trail Blazers or the injury-ravaged Los Angeles Clippers in the next round of the Western Conference playoffs.
Portland appear to be in pole position to face Golden State after defeating the Clippers 108-98 on Wednesday to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Whether the Blazers would have enough to trouble the Warriors, even without Curry, remains to be seen.
Golden State coach Steve Kerr, who received his NBA Coach of the Year award just before tip-off at the Oracle Arena, hailed his team’s strength in depth after the win.
“Literally every single guy on our roster contributed during this series,” Kerr said.
That point was emphasized by the performance of Curry’s replacement, veteran Shaun Livingston, who finished with 16 points on Wednesday.
James Harden scored a game-high 35 points for the Rockets, but the result was never in doubt after the Warriors sprinted into a 37-20 lead in the first quarter that they never looked like losing.
While the Warriors overcame the absence of Curry smoothly, the Clippers were unable to paper over the gaping hole in their ranks left by the absence of injured stars Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.
The Clippers fought bravely to stay in touch heading into the fourth quarter at the Staples Center.
However, as the game reached its critical phase, Portland stretched away to seal a deserved win that leaves them needing just one more victory to advance. Game 6 takes place today in Portland.
C.J. McCollum finished with 27 points, while Damian Lillard scored 16 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter.
Maurice Harkless added 19 points and 10 rebounds, while Allen Crabbe had 11 points, and Mason Plumlee and Gerald Henderson contributed 10 points to cap a fine all-round display.
For the Clippers, J.J. Redick finished with 19 points, while Jamal Crawford scored 17. DeAndre Jordan added 16 points and 17 rebounds.
Clippers coach Doc Rivers said his team had been running on empty when it mattered.
“Like they turned their energy up in the beginning of the third [quarter] and we were exhausted,” Rivers said. “I had to call two timeouts. You could just see it. That is not conditioning, that was emotion.”
Redick insisted the Clippers would be ready to rise to the challenge when they hit the road to face Portland.
“I do not want to equate a basketball game to death, but it is do or die,” Redick said afterward.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, the Charlotte Hornets stunned the Miami Heat 90-88 to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Courtney Lee was the hero for Charlotte, sinking a game-winning three-pointer with a little less than 30 seconds left to leave the Hornets within one win of a place in the next round.
Charlotte are at home for today’s Game 6, where victory would see them advance.
Lee set up his game-winning play after grabbing a crucial long rebound. He also conjured a key block on Dwyane Wade with 2.6 seconds left as the Hornets held on.
“He is a terrific athlete and he has good timing,” Hornets coach Steve Clifford said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier