HOUSTON – Steph Curry and the Warriors returned to the NBA playoffs and renewed their heated rivalry with the Houston Rockets on Easter Sunday, fending off a back-and-forth battle at Toyota Center for a 95-85 Game 1 win to open their first-round series.
Curry fought off the Rockets’ physicality for 31 points on 12-of-19 shooting and made five 3-pointers. Jimmy Butler continued to be Batman’s Robin, adding 25 points on 10-of-19 shooting, plus seven rebounds and six assists. His emphatic, roaring dunk as he hung on the rim put a loud exclamation on the Warriors’ win
Jimmy SLAMS the door 💥 pic.twitter.com/9uIIKkbxfH
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) April 21, 2025
The Warriors led by as many as 23 points, but then went ice-cold and didn’t make a shot in the final four minutes of the third quarter. Experience against youth. Size against speed and the greatest shooter ever. As the first installment showed, this will be a taxing showdown each game.
Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ Game 1 win.
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Before he even suited up for a playoff game, Warriors rookie center Quinten Post made a guarantee that the Rockets wouldn’t hold Curry to three points again like they did two weeks ago. Curry missed his first three shots – all 3-point attempts – but then sliced through the Rockets’ defense to finish at the rim, connecting on his next three shots to score six points in the first quarter.
Curry sat for the first six minutes of the second quarter and cooked the Rockets’ defense once he returned. Over the final six minutes going into halftime, Curry scored 10 points and hit two threes. After scoring three points on 1-of-10 shooting two weeks ago, he was up to 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting through the first half.
Whenever he didn’t have the ball in his hands, Curry was running through a brick wall of Rockets defenders who were holding onto him all around the court. During the Warriors’ second timeout, Curry chatted with two referees but that didn’t stop Houston’s strategy. Nor did it stop Curry from putting on a show.
The Rockets are all over Steph so far 🤨 pic.twitter.com/Gw1sfDqgQr
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) April 21, 2025
He shook his defenders on and off the ball, and found ways to make the impossible become possible without any surprise. After missing his first three shots, Curry made 12 of his final 16 the rest of the game.
The Warriors needed 75 combined points from Curry and Butler to beat the Memphis Grizzlies in their NBA play-in tournament game to advance to the playoffs. They’re two of the game’s greatest postseason performers, and the Warriors know they can jump on their backs to get wins. But they’re going to need help.
In the second quarter, players around the two stars rose to the challenge. Curry and Butler scored 12 of the Warriors’ 18 points in the first quarter. The Warriors then went on an 18-5 run through the first six minutes of the second quarter with Curry on the bench to take a 10-point lead, 36-26, before he checked back into the game.
Golden State in the second quarter got five points from Gui Santos, three from Brandin Podziemski, two from Draymond Green and two from Buddy Hield to hold a 13-point halftime lead. But as the game went on and the Warriors’ lead dwindled down, the impact of those players shrank.
However, Moses Moody scored five of his seven points in the fourth quarter and Podziemski was a game-high plus-17 with 14 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Their contributions will be critical each game.
Coach Steve Kerr in his pregame press conference said the outcome of the Warriors’ first-round series depends on the possession battle. The Rockets were going to use their size advantage however they could, and the Warriors knew it. Not only did they use their two-big lineup of Alperen Şengün and Steven Adams, but the 6-foot-10 Jabari Smith Jr. also joined them on the court.
The difference in height was a hard hill to climb for the Warriors, as it will be the rest of the series. Houston owned the glass over Golden State, outrebounding the Warriors 52-36. That was especially true on offense, where the Rockets grabbed 22 rebounds and the Warriors only came down with six.
Steven Adams’ five offensive rebounds were one shy of the Warriors’ team total. The Rockets took 11 more shots than the Warriors and scored 12 more second-chance points. But Golden State’s defense swiped 14 steals, five more than Houston, and had three fewer turnovers.
In the end, the Warriors draining six more threes made a major difference. Each possession was found gold, one way or the other.
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