SAN FRANCISCO — Aaron Gordon’s tenth and remaining made 3 on Thursday evening at Chase Heart felt like the ultimate dagger. It got here with 26 seconds left in regulation, placing the visiting Denver Nuggets up by three and punctuating a profession evening for the Twelfth-year ahead.
However the largest perimeter fireworks present in Gordon’s life occurred to come back in opposition to the best shooter of all time.
5 seconds later, out of a timeout, Stephen Curry stepped right into a semi-contested 34-footer off a display screen and buried it to tie the rating. 5 minutes later, after Curry opened extra time with one other made 3 and closed it with two free throws, the Golden State Warriors completed a 137-131 win to overshadow Gordon’s 50-point masterpiece.
“The larger the second, the extra he rises,” Draymond Inexperienced mentioned of Curry. “He is this quiet man … however he loves the present. Anytime there is a present to be placed on, he’ll do it.”
Gordon’s stat line was jaw-dropping: 50 factors on 17-of-21 taking pictures and 10-of-11 from 3. He made eight straight 3s to open the sport, one shy of an NBA document.
“Ridiculous,” Curry mentioned. “No matter he did this summer season, it labored.”
Two seasons in the past, Gordon made solely 29% of his 1.9 tried 3s per recreation. Final season, he made a major leap, hitting 43.6% of his 3.4 per recreation.
However Thursday evening’s efficiency was altogether completely different. Gordon had by no means made greater than seven 3s in a recreation. Towards the Warriors, he grew to become solely the seventeenth participant in historical past to make 10 3s in a shedding effort. That has occurred to Curry seven occasions and no different participant greater than as soon as.
This time, Curry was the one delivering disappointment to quell a particular evening. Curry’s 42 factors — on 14-of-25 taking pictures and 6 3s — had been the second most he has scored in his 17 residence openers. The Warriors struggled when he was off the ground in opposition to the Nuggets however gained his minutes by 15 factors.
“The shot he made to tie it towards the top [of regulation], it is a shot that solely he could make,” Nuggets coach David Adelman mentioned.
The Warriors’ largest strategic selection of the evening got here late within the fourth quarter. Throughout a timeout huddle, assistant coaches Terry Stotts and Chris DeMarco steered to move coach Steve Kerr that he deploy a much bigger lineup of Curry, Jimmy Butler, Jonathan Kuminga, Inexperienced and the newly acquired Al Horford.
It is a five-man, jumbo-sized grouping (by Warriors’ requirements) that Kerr mentioned he hadn’t even thought of utilizing throughout coaching camp. They’d by no means even practiced collectively.
“The place we going to attain?” Kerr mentioned. “That was my largest concern. May we execute [offensively]? However [Stotts and DeMarco] jogged my memory we’ve Steph and Jimmy, they usually’ll discover a strategy to rating.”
Using a bigger lineup for the sometimes smaller Warriors allowed them to match up higher defensively, particularly with Horford’s skill to change on the middle place and Kuminga’s continued progress as a two-way wing to open his fifth season.
“It was actually enjoyable to observe a bunch that is by no means performed collectively shut a recreation in opposition to probably the greatest groups within the league,” Kerr mentioned.
That five-man group erased a seven-point Denver lead within the remaining 3:50 of regulation and beat the Nuggets by six in extra time.
“I did [previously] assume that was a risk to be a closing lineup,” Inexperienced mentioned. “Or a beginning lineup. Or a center of the sport lineup.”
The win moved the Warriors to 2-0, gathering some early momentum as they attempt to set up themselves as a reliable convention contender within the Denver tier. The Nuggets (0-1) journey residence to face the Suns on Saturday evening.