By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Andrew Wiggins had 26 points and 13 rebounds, Klay Thompson scored 21 points and the Golden State Warriors beat the Boston Celtics 104-94 for a 3-2 NBA Finals lead.
“Coming into this year, he was an All-Star starter for a reason,” Draymond Green said about Wiggins. “… The bigger the challenge has been that we’ve thrown in front of him, the bigger he’s responded. You want a guy like that. When the stage gets big, they respond and play their best basketball, and that’s what he’s been doing.”
One game after his 43-point performance, Curry contributed 16 points and eight assists but was 0 for 9 from the 3-point range. The career 3-point leader’s NBA-record streak of 132 straight postseason games with at least one made three-point shot ended, along with his NBA-best run of 233 consecutive games with a three between regular season and playoffs combined.
“Uh, keep shooting, very simple,” Curry said, grinning. “I’m not afraid to go 0-fer or whatever because I’m going to keep shooting.”
Green knows how Curry will respond: “He’s going to be livid going into Game 6. That’s exactly what we need.”
Capping his brilliant performance on both ends, Wiggins drove through the lane for an emphatic one-handed slam with 2:10 left.
“Bottom line is he’s just having fun playing basketball,” Curry said.
The Warriors can win their fourth title in eight years when the series resumes in Boston on Thursday night. If the Celtics can win at home, the series will return to the Bay Area for a winner-take-all Game 7 on Sunday. All five games so far have been decided by 10 or more points.
Jayson Tatum had 27 points and 10 rebounds for the Celtics, who lost consecutive games for the first time in the postseason. Marcus Smart was whistled for a technical foul then an offensive foul in a one-second span early in the fourth. He overcame a slow start to score 20 points. Boston didn’t use German big man Daniel Theis while Serb Nemanja Bjelica played five minutes for the Warriors and got one rebound.