Warriors’ wild sequence
Golden State rode a string of high‑leverage plays from Stephen Curry — including two four‑point plays and a pair of clutch assists to Brandin Podziemski — to a key win that keeps their late push alive. Those momentum moments matter because Curry’s ability to swing single possessions into multi‑point swings can flip the math on play‑in matchups. (x.com)
Stephen Curry came off the bench on April 7 and still bent the game twice with the rarest scoring play in basketball: a four-point play, where a made three-pointer turns into four points because the shooter is fouled on the release. Golden State beat Sacramento 110-105 at Chase Center, and those two swings were the difference between another damaging loss and a live playoff race. (nba.com, espn.com) A four-point play is a math trick disguised as a shot. One defender makes a mistake for half a second, and a team that expected to give up three points suddenly gives up four while also losing the ball. (nba.com, apnews.com) Curry hit one of those with 3:58 left in the second quarter. He hit another with 2:39 left before halftime, and the second one pushed Golden State ahead 60-44. (nba.com, espn.com) That matters because Golden State did not spend this night steamrolling Sacramento. The fourth quarter stayed within five points the whole way, which meant every earlier possession that had been stretched from three points to four kept showing up on the scoreboard later. (nba.com, nba.com) The other late swing came from Brandin Podziemski, the second-year guard who finished with 20 points. In the final minutes, Curry drew the defense and found Podziemski twice for clutch three-pointers, turning Sacramento help defense into six Golden State points. (nba.com, espn.com) That is the part of Curry’s game that changes more than his own box score. A defender cannot fully leave him, so one hard trap can open the exact pass that gives a teammate a clean catch-and-shoot look instead of a rushed jumper with a hand in his face. (nba.com, nba.com) Curry finished with 17 points on 5-for-12 shooting in his second game back from a right knee injury. He also came off the bench for the second straight game, which is unusual for a player who has spent most of this era as Golden State’s starter, closer, and offensive center of gravity. (apnews.com, nba.com) Golden State needed this one because the team had lost four straight before Tuesday night. The win moved the Warriors to 37-42, which kept them from sliding further out of the Western Conference play-in chase with only a few regular-season games left. (apnews.com, espn.com) The National Basketball Association play-in tournament is the league’s pressure chamber for teams that finish from seventh through tenth in each conference. Instead of cruising directly into a seven-game series, those teams have to survive one or two short, high-variance games where one hot shooter or one cold quarter can end a season. (usatoday.com, nba.com) That format is why a player like Curry can distort the bracket even before the bracket is set. In a normal possession, the best outcome is usually two or three points; in a Curry possession, one mistake can become four, and one double-team can become an open three for someone else. (nba.com, nba.com) Sacramento felt both versions on April 7. The Kings gave up eight points on two fouled threes from Curry, then watched Podziemski cash in the space Curry created late, and that is how a five-point final margin gets built without one superstar needing a 40-point night. (nba.com, espn.com) Golden State’s season has been uneven enough that 37 wins still leaves almost no room for error. But this game showed the exact version of the Warriors that nobody wants to see in a single-elimination setting: Curry turning one possession into four points, then turning the next defensive panic into three for somebody else. (espn.com, nba.com)
