With less than three minutes left in Game 7 on Sunday, Stephen Curry did to Jalen Green what he has done to countless other Houston Rockets players, fans and coaches over the past decade. He stepped back to his left, hit a long 3-pointer over the Rockets’ young guard’s outstretched arms and made a dagger to seal the Golden State Warriors’ big win at Toyota Center.
The 3, which gave the Warriors a 17-point lead in Sunday’s Game 7, was the exclamation point on the team’s fifth playoff win over the Rockets in the past decade.
Houston, after overhauling its entire roster in a multiyear rebuild that is just beginning to bear fruit, had hoped to make history in this series. Instead, Curry, Draymond Green, Steve Kerr and the Warriors once again dashed their hopes. Different names, same franchise.
At the height of their dynasty, from 2015 to 2019, the Warriors staged four memorable series against the Rockets. There was the 2015 Western Conference Finals, when the Warriors were on the march. There was the teams’ first-round series in 2016, when Golden State overcame a wet spot that caused Curry’s knee to buckle. There was the memorable 2018 series when the heavily favored Rockets seemed poised to overcome the Warriors, only to miss 27 consecutive 3-pointers in a Game 7 home loss. There was the rematch in 2019, when the Rockets were given a golden opportunity by Kevin Durant’s calf injury and still couldn’t beat the Warriors in Game 6.
