By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Stephen Curry scored 37 points and Golden State beat the Blazers 128-103 on Monday night to advance to the conference semifinals. The Warriors will face the winner of the series between the Utah Jazz and the Los Angeles Clippers, which is tied at 2.
Damian Lillard scored 34 points for the Blazers, who were making their fourth straight appearance in the playoffs and missed once more Bosnian Jusuf Nurkic. Kevin Durant returned to action and had 10 points for the Warriors, while Georgian Zaza Pachulia added 11 points and 7 rebounds for the winners.
Jose Calderon, picked up on waivers late in the season, made a huge contribution to help the Atlanta Hawks pull away from the Washington Wizards 111-101 on Monday night, evening the opening-round series at 2-2.
Answering the call when German Denis Schroder got in early foul trouble, the Spanish guard played 20 minutes, scored 10 points and dished out 5 assists. Dwight Howard had his best game of the postseason, putting up a double-double by halftime and finishing with 16 points and 15 rebounds. Paul Millsap bounced back from a sluggish start to score 19 points. And Schroder, after going scoreless in a first half spent largely on the bench, managed to put up 18 points. Turk Ersan Ilyasova added 6 points and 5 rebounds for the winners.
For the Wizards Marcin Gortat scored 2 points but also had 18 rebounds, while Croatian Bojan Bogdanovic added 13 points.