Not the oldest player on the team, but every member of the Warriors had a good reason to play poorly in Toronto. The man who “looked tired” five days ago is almost thirty-six years old.
However, Stephen Curry made no apologies, even following a protracted airport wait prior to an early morning trip from New York to Toronto. He dismissed the idea that he was “tired” last Sunday. And he went out and lit fire to it on Friday night, defeating the Raptors 120-105.
With the support of coach Steve Kerr’s loud encouragement and Curry’s unwavering will, the Warriors overcame exhaustion after departing New York nearly five hours later than planned because of a purported mechanical issue at the airport.
The team’s leaders established an example that the rest of the group followed.
“You need to be resilient if you want to win,” Draymond Green told reporters at Scotiabank Arena. “You have no choice if your leaders are tenacious. Furthermore, Steph is among the strongest individuals I’ve ever encountered. Steve Kerr has incredible resilience. And once you have it, everyone else kind of follows suit.
The Warriors had a somewhat uneventful first half and trailed 64-61 at the end. However, led by Curry, they emerged in the third quarter and managed to go into overdrive. Less than two minutes into the quarter, he made his first 3-pointer to tie the game. They led by seven points after his second. With his third, 27 points, he extended the margin to 10 and forced the Raptors into a slumber.
The Warriors appeared to be the younger team all of a 𝔰udden. With the defense holding Toronto to 27.8% shooting from the field, they defeated the Raptors 32-19 in the third quarter, maintaining a lead that never fell below seven points.
Chris Paul remarked, “We had an eventful day, or an eventful night,” during the Warriors Postgame on NBC Sports Bay Area. “Unable to leave New York.”
But there are a lot of tough people on our team right now. We have many males who are not made like that, even though we could have found every excuse in the book to come outside and lay down tonight.
“Weary” Steph finished plus-12 over 30 minutes with a game-high 25 points on 9 of 22 shooting, including 7 of 15 from beyond the arc. He also added six rebounds and six assists.
In order to give the Warriors (32-27) the momentum they needed to jump above.500 for the first time this season and move up from ninth place in the Western Conference to one percentage point ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers (33-28), Curry had to score 23 points in his first 23 minutes of play.
Amazing victory, Kerr exclaimed. “That night was rough.” It is the worst set of travel circumstances I have ever encountered while playing in the NBA. We went to bed around eight this morning, I believe. The boys went to bed during the day and then got up to attend the game. It was quite difficult.
“However, I’m proud of the team for how they competed. We really locked in and performed well after that reasonable slow start.”
