Steph’s return: 29 points

Stephen Curry came back Sunday night after a 27-game absence and immediately reminded everyone what Golden State had been missing. He scored 29 points in 26 minutes against Houston, shot 11-for-21 from the field, made five of his 10 threes, and nearly dragged the Warriors all the way back before their final possession died with a missed three at the buzzer. The Warriors still lost, 117-116, but the game did not feel like another routine loss in a lost season. It felt like the return of the one force that can still bend a game around this team. (nba.com) That mattered because Golden State had spent more than two months trying to survive without him. Curry had not played since January 30 because of a right knee injury. By the time he returned on April 5, the Warriors had fallen to 36-42 and were riding a four-game losing streak. They were not chasing home court. They were trying to keep the season from hardening into a 10-seed finish. A team can patch over missing shooting for a week or two. It cannot fake the geometry Curry creates for 27 straight games. (sports.yahoo.com) You could see that geometry reappear as the game tightened. Houston led by 15 in the fourth quarter. Then Curry started folding the floor in half. He scored 19 points in the second half, hit a late driving layup to cut the lead to one, then answered an Alperen Sengun three-point play with a three of his own. Golden State’s offense stopped looking improvised and started looking dangerous. Even in a loss, that was the real shift. The Warriors did not suddenly become deep or balanced or safe. They became credible again. (nbcbayarea.com) That is why a 29-point return lands harder in April than it would in November. Late in the season, teams make choices they would never confess as strategic surrender. Minutes get trimmed. Veterans sit. Opponents weigh fatigue against urgency and decide which night really deserves a full rotation. Those calculations get shakier when Curry is on the floor and moving well. A compromised Golden State team can be managed. A Golden State team with Curry bombing off movement and pulling help 30 feet from the rim is a different scheduling problem. That does not guarantee wins. It does make caution look expensive. Houston still escaped because it had the cleaner finish. Kevin Durant scored 31. Sengun had 24 and the go-ahead layup with 11 seconds left. Golden State got one last chance, and the ball found the player it always finds. Curry rose for a final three that would have completed the whole script. It missed. The Warriors walked off with a fourth straight loss. Curry walked off having played only 26 minutes, scored 29 points, and turned the last 90 seconds into something the Chase Center had not felt in a while: belief. (nba.com)