Point guard Stephen Curry went for a game-high 36 points, and the Golden State Warriors, despite missing injured Jimmy Butler III, rallied past the visiting Houston Rockets 104-93 to take a 2-1 lead in their National Basketball Association (NBA) first-round playoff series in San Francisco.The Warriors’ Gary Payton II saved nine of his postseason career-high 16 points for a late run, and Buddy Hield bombed five 3-pointers to account for a majority of his 17 points. Rookie Quinten Post, making his first postseason start, snatched a game-high 12 rebounds for the seventh-seeded Warriors, who can go up 3-1 in the Western Conference best-of-seven series with another home-court win on Monday.
“This series, no game is going to be pretty,” Curry said on Saturday night after the game on the ABC broadcast. “You just kinda have to grind it out. We had 22 points halfway through the [second quarter]. You wonder, how are we going to score? You just stick with it and make the right plays.”
The Warriors learned after the pregame warmup that Butler would not be able to go because of a glute contusion suffered in the Game 2 loss at Houston. Advertisement
“Everybody just stepped up and played for Jimmy,” Curry said. “Hopefully, he’s back soon.”
After the Rockets held the Warriors to 18 points in the …
