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Steph ‘sad' Game 6 return plans were spoiled with Warriors' loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO – All Steph Curry needed was the Warriors to win one of their four final games. They couldn’t. 

The Warriors lost four straight games to be dropped by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the Western Conference semifinals in a five-game series. Curry the day before Game 5 was ruled out because of his strained left hamstring. He also was cleared for light on-court workouts and shooting drills, something Curry had already begun doing. 

There was a light at the end of the tunnel. Curry could see it, so could the rest of his Warriors teammates. 

But so did the Minnesota Timberwolves. They knew the monster who was lurking in the shadows and never let him out of his cage. 

“Everything was kind of aligned for Game 6,” Curry said Thursday at his exit interview. “I had some testing to do, and who knows how that would have went because I haven’t gone live since Game 1. 

“First time dealing with this injury. I was pretty optimistic, but there were a couple more checkpoints to get through. But it’s the great what-if.” 

Curry was working round the clock to make his return, spending eight to nine hours of rehab every day to get his hamstring in good enough shape to play again. The Warriors would have had three days in between Game 5 and Game 6, perhaps the perfect amount of rest and rehab for Curry to play hero once more.

He was lively on the bench, but also couldn’t fully hide his sadness, shaking his head at a Julius Randle 3-pointer in Game 5. He was at shootarounds, rebounding for teammates and remaining engaged. 

As Curry walked off the Target Center court Wednesday after shootaround ahead of Game 5, he got up one last shot. Steph caught a bounce pass from his personal bodyguard, Yusef Wright, and let it fly from the right wing. In mid-air, Curry knew, as he always does, yelling “Yes!” before the ball kissed the bottom of the net. 

The rest of the night was a no for the Warriors. No Curry, no wins. The Warriors played the Timberwolves nine times between the regular season and the NBA playoffs. They went 4-1 with Curry, and 0-4 without him. 

From the moment the Warriors acquired Jimmy Butler at the trade deadline, they were in playoff mode. There wasn’t any time to take their foot off the gas. Curry had two 50-point games in that span and was playing like his MVP seasons at 37 years old. But he also had to go through the play-in tournament and seven games in the first round of the playoffs while battling injuries to his right thumb, his backside and then his unfortunate hamstring strain to open the second round of the playoffs.

Curry just wanted a chance. He was given one, and then his hamstring said otherwise. He’s proud of the fight the Warriors displayed, but isn’t going to hide his other feelings. 

“Definitely disappointed, and frankly just sad that I wasn’t out there able to play,” Curry said. “We have hopefully a bright future in terms of coming back next year and trying again.” 

The phrase “gut punch” has been thrown around to describe Curry’s injury. He knows what it takes to even make it to the playoffs, and then to have that taken away was mentally exhausting. His mind and body need a break. 

This is the man who played hero for Team USA basketball at the Paris Summer Olympics and carried the weight of a franchise at lowly times before Butler came aboard. He’s a father of four of who wears too many hats to count. The what-ifs will persist. 

They also don’t change a thing, and Curry is ready to hit the reset button ahead of doing it all over again. 

“It’s going to be just about rebuilding – one, getting rest, like you said, getting away from the game a little bit, and then rebuilding everything for another great run,” he said.

“I’m going to take full advantage of the offseason knowing I’ve been playing a lot of basketball for the last year, and have a lot left in the tank to prepare for, so I’m excited about it.”

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In honor of the Luke Kornet Game, revisiting big man's best Celtics moments originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

With their season on the line and Kristaps Porzingis hampered by a lingering illness, the Boston Celtics needed a big man to step up Wednesday night.

Enter Luke Kornet.

The eight-year veteran was a force in Game 5 against the New York Knicks, racking up 10 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks off the bench while becoming the first player in NBA playoff history to post that stat line on 100 percent shooting (5 for 5).

Kornet’s performance on both ends was critical to Boston’s 127-102 win, and may have felt like an outlier for those who glance at the big man’s relatively modest career stats. But as Celtics fans well know, Kornet has been making an outsized impact all season, both with his play on the court and his, shall we say, “unique” personality off the court.

So on the heels of the “Luke Kornet Game,” we’re bringing back some of Kornet’s best moments from the 2024-25 campaign, including hilarious interviews, wacky celebrations and more.

Roll the tape!

Kornet’s epic interview with Abby Chin before Celtics’ championship parade

Kornet has some interesting takes on the NBA Cup

Kornet offers dental advice after Derrick White loses tooth vs. 76ers

Jaylen Brown shares Kornet’s hilarious reaction to Giannis’ handshake fakeout

Breaking down the best Kornet celebrations with Luke and Sam Hauser

Inside look at Kornet’s pregame ritual: The windmill dunk

Kornet takes aim at PGL crew after not winning ‘Tommy Award’

A message from Kornet regarding the race for the season-long Tommy Award

Exclusive: Derrick White responds to Kornet’s Tommy Award “attack ad”

Hauser wants to hear TD Garden barking with Kornet

The Golden State Warriors got a taste of life after Stephen Curry, and it was repulsive.

The Warriors’ season ended Wednesday night in Game 5 of the Western Conference semi-finals. The younger, more explosive Minnesota Timberwolves thrashed them 121-110 to cap a series the Warriors were never really in, even when they briefly led it. That is because this series had a singular line of demarcation: the second quarter of Game 1.

Golden State outscored Minnesota 30-20 in the first 14 minutes and 41 seconds of the series. But at exactly that point, Curry grabbed at what turned out to be a strained left hamstring. He did not play another minute, and while the Warriors hung on to win that night by 11, they had nothing left for the rest of the series. With Curry healthy, Golden State won the first 15 minutes of the series by 10 points. Without him, they lost the last 225 minutes by a combined 56.

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Curry still chugs along nicely, even at at 37. The Warriors have slowly reinvented themselves around him, hanging on only to Curry, the 35-year-old Draymond Green, and coach Steve Kerr from the days when they were a true title dynasty in the 2010s. When Curry was on the floor this season, the Warriors still had one of the fiercest offenses in basketball, scoring 120.4 points per 100 possessions. Without him? 108.4, making for roughly the difference between the best offense in the NBA over a full season and the worst.

There was reason to hope, however, that the Warriors would be a little less Steph-dependent during this playoff run. The team swung a midseason trade for Jimmy Butler, who has long been a good scorer and one of the great defenders in basketball. Butler had a transformative impact down the stretch, boosting the Warriors’ numbers when he was on the court more than any other player, Curry included. The Dubs seemed to have a potent mix of talented, seasoned veterans (Curry, Green, Butler) and young supporting castmates (hello, Brandin Podziemski and Moses Moody) to be compelling in the playoffs. A fifth championship for Curry? Probably not, but a substantial run looked possible.

It wasn’t to be. The Warriors without Curry were lifeless, scoring at a clip of 104.6 points per 100 possessions in the series’ final four games. (Minnesota were scoring 116.9.) The Warriors’ assists-to-turnover ratio in those games was 1.2, down from 2.1 during the regular season. The Curry-less Warriors weren’t just missing his all-world shooting ability, but his creativity, too.

The Warriors got some nice performances from their depth players, who tried to patch the gaping hole left by Curry. Forward Jonathan Kuminga was particularly impressive, taking up a more expansive offensive role and scoring 24.3 points per game after Curry’s injury.

But there is only one Curry, and without him, the only Warrior who could plausibly pick up the scoring slack was Butler. It would have been a stretch, though, and Butler floundered on offense as he tried to backfill some of Curry’s points. In Games 2 through 5, Butler shot 45.8% from the field and struggled to find any consistency. The Warriors’ team defense was decent enough, but the offense was so lifeless that the Warriors’ series never got out of neutral once Curry exited.

The Curry-Kerr Warriors have been declared dead several times, only to spring back to life – first to win the title in 2022 after missing the playoffs twice in a row, then to work themselves into “intriguing potential contender status” after the Butler trade this season. (They were 25-26 the day they acquired Butler, then finished the season on a 23-8 run and took a seven-game first-round series from the Houston Rockets.) There is no sense in declaring that Curry will never win anything again, only to have to walk it back later.

The Warriors are playing with fire, though. On the one hand, they have restocked their depth players around Curry nicely. Suffering a steep drop in quality without a player of Curry’s caliber is hardly an indictment of a team-building strategy, either. But on the other hand, even if Curry continues to beat Father Time well into his 40s, the Warriors’ lack of other gamechanging offensive talent was laid bare as he watched from the sidelines. Adding a pricey outside acquisition on top of Butler, who. turns 36 in September, is almost certainly impractical given the Warriors’ heavy salary cap sheet, and even retaining the restricted free agent Kuminga (a bright spot in this series) could push the Warriors quite close to the “first apron” luxury tax threshold that begins to hamper a team’s roster-building options.

No doubt Curry will do all he can to keep lugging the Warriors to within striking distance of contention. The realities of age and the salary cap may well just not apply to a player of his caliber for a while. But the Warriors, for now, are betting not just on Curry’s magic but on a friendlier treatment from the injury gods until the greatest player in their history decides to hang up his sneakers.

It isn’t a great bet, but what else is there to do?

Brown saves Celtics' season with elite performance, improved playmaking originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Jaylen Brown stepped up when the Boston Celtics needed him most in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series versus the New York Knicks on Wednesday night.

With the Celtics facing elimination and Jayson Tatum out indefinitely due to a ruptured Achilles, Brown posted a near triple-double with 26 points, a playoff career-high 12 assists and eight rebounds, along with only two turnovers in Boston’s 127-102 victory at TD Garden.

Brown was efficient as a shooter, hitting nine of 17 shot attempts (3-for-5 from 3-point range). He didn’t settle for bad shots and just took what the defense gave him. The Knicks played well in the first half and even built an eight-point lead at one point in the second quarter, but the Celtics went into halftime tied thanks in large part to Brown’s 17 points, seven rebounds and six assists through two quarters.

Brown was super aggressive offensively but did it in a controlled manner. He drew nine fouls in the game — at least three more than any other player on both teams — including the sixth foul on Knicks star Jalen Brunson that knocked him out of the game with 7:19 left in the fourth quarter.

But the biggest impact Brown had on Boston’s win wasn’t his scoring. It was his playmaking. Brown struck a near-perfect balance between being a primary scorer and getting his teammates involved.

His first assist to Luke Kornet (watch here) in the first quarter was a good example. Brown took advantage of the smaller Brunson to get to the basket, and instead of trying to shoot over the help defense of Karl-Anthony Towns, he made a tremendous pass to the Celtics center.

In the fourth quarter, Brown took advantage of a slower Mitchell Robinson and drove to the basket. Again, instead of trying to shoot over the help defense from Towns, Brown switched hands and made a great pass to Jrue Holiday for an easy basket (watch here).

Later in the fourth quarter, Brown hit a rolling Kornet for an alley-oop that brought the Celtics crowd to its feet.

Brown has shown flashes of improved playmaking in the past, but it’s not known as a staple of his skill set. But with Tatum out of the lineup for the rest of the playoffs, Brown had to become more of a facilitator, and he passed the test.

“Just being poised,” Brown said of his passing after the game. “Seeing the help, seeing the defense and making right reads over and over again. Just getting to the paint, what I like to do, and then they were collapsing. Our guys were moving, we played with pace, and I was able to find guys on open shots.”

Brown’s defense was strong in Game 5, too. The Knicks shot just 6-for-16 when Brown was the primary defender. He also did a good job on Brunson, guarding the Knicks guard on 42 percent of his possessions and limiting his effectiveness. Brown also has guarded OG Anunoby for 9:04 in the last two games, and the Knicks forward has scored zero points on 0-for-4 shooting during that time.

Brown won the hustle battle in Game 5 as well. He accounted for six of the Celtics’ 12 deflections, and he saved a possession by diving into Boston’s bench for a loose ball early in the third quarter with his team up 63-62.

“I think his leadership came on the defensive end,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said postgame. “Just his physicality and his presence to dive into the bench kind of changed the game for us. There were other game-changing plays, but I thought that was one of them.

“He was great on all levels. He took it upon himself to guard Brunson and set the tone, and he did that on both ends.”

The Celtics still have plenty of work to do. They need to win two more games in a row to complete the comeback and advance to the Eastern Conference finals for the fourth straight year.

Game 6 at Madison Square Garden on Friday night might be the toughest game the Celtics have played in a long time. The MSG crowd will be super intense with the Knicks having a chance to secure their first conference finals berth in 25 years.

The Celtics will need a fast start to take the crowd out of the game, and Brown will play a huge part in that. He gave a phenomenal performance at both ends of the floor to extend the Celtics’ season in Game 5. Can he do it again?