Despite Steph Curry’s poor shooting, Warriors win massive Game 5

In Game 4, Steph Curry put the Golden State Warriors on his back as he exploded for 43 points to tie the NBA Finals at two games apiece. In Game 5, Curry’s teammates wound up having his back when on a rare off night from Steph, the rest of the Warriors stepped up and defeated the Boston Celtics 104-94 to take a 3-2 series lead.

Curry couldn’t hit anything from three. Literally. Curry ended up 0-for-9 from three and snapped NBA record streaks of consecutive games with a three (233), consecutive playoff games with a three (132), and consecutive playoff games with multiple threes (38). Curry ended the game with 16 points with three rebounds and eight assists.

Who stepped up? That would be Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson. Both guys broke the 20 point barrier with Wiggins scoring a Warriors game high 26 points on 13 rebounds. Off the bench, Gary Payton II and Jordan Poole scored 15 and 14 points respectively as these four players primarily took up the slack from Curry’s poor shooting.

Another reason the Warriors won was the mix of great defending and poor shooting from the Celtics. Along with 18 turnovers, the Celtics started out 0-for-12 from three to start the game. The Celtics would bounce back and eventually erased a 16 point deficit toward the end of the third quarter but a buzzer beater from Poole at the end of the third sure felt like a dagger to the hearts of the Celtics as the Warriors extended their lead to double digits and held on for the 10 point win.

The Warriors now head to Boston with the opportunity to win their seventh NBA championship and their fourth since 2015. If the Celtics are to win their 18th title, they will need to win Game 6 on Thursday and then head back to San Francisco for Game 7 on Sunday. It would be the first NBA Finals Game 7 since 2016.