Curry won the tiebreak battle with 22 points, and the Rockets are hard to break the curse of "Fire War" in 10 years

Curry scored 14 points in the last quarter and became the Warriors' winning contributor.

In the past 10 years, the "Fire War" has become a destined showdown in the NBA playoffs. Since 2015, the Rockets have met the Warriors five times, and they have never been able to defeat the Warriors regardless of whether they have a home court advantage or not.

On May 5, the last seat in the first round of the NBA playoffs was settled. In the first round tiebreak at the Toyota Center Arena in Houston, the Rockets lost to the Warriors 89-103 and were eliminated. After experiencing the playoffs, the Warriors completed the "lower win" as the seventh place and successfully advanced to the Western Conference semi-finals. Curry scored "double-double" data of 22 points and 10 rebounds, as well as 7 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks, becoming the winner.

This year's "Fire War" has been full of twists and turns. When the Warriors won the match point 3-1 in the first four games, the outside world thought that the Warriors could easily advance to the next round. However, the Rockets, standing on the edge of the cliff, showed the young team's "no fate" traits, winning two games in a row, dragging the series into a tiebreak battle.

It is worth mentioning that the sixth game that won away is the second time in the Rockets' history that defeated the Warriors away in the playoffs. Before that game, according to statistics from the US media ESPN, the Rockets' away game against the Warriors in the playoffs was 1 win and 13 losses, and the only previous victory dates back to the fourth game of the Western Conference Finals in 2018.

It is precisely because of these two hard-won victory that the Rockets' team was very motivated before this game. Shin Kyung, the inner core of the team, even said that the Warriors never really beat the Rockets in this series. "I think the Warriors never really beat us in this series. We defeated ourselves, missed the free throws, and couldn't grasp the simple scoring opportunity. When we were fully focused, we could play at a high level. Our team was talented and there was no reason to lose this game."

As Shin Kyung said, all the favorable factors before the tiebreak battle were developing towards "Rockets' promotion" - whether it was the odds of most media or data companies, they were optimistic about the Rockets; the Warriors' key role player Payton was absent due to illness.

Warriors posted Curry's average tiebreak battle before the game to build momentum for the "Fire War".

In this case, the Warriors official posted a data before the game: Stephen Curry averaged 32.6 points per game in his career tiebreaker, ranking third in the NBA history (at least 5 games), second only to Durant's 36.2 points and James' 34.9 points. In addition, in the tiebreaker against the Kings in 2023, Curry scored 50 points away at the road and finally took away the victory.

Interestingly, when the tiebreak battle began, the players who really dominated the game were Buddy Hilder and Draymond Green next to Curry. In the first quarter of the game, the two players were fully fired from the outside. They each made two three-pointers in the first quarter. Hilder even made 4 of 5 shots from outside the three-point line in the second quarter, scoring 22 points in the first half.

, and Curry became the "smoke screen" that distracted his opponent's defensive energy. He made 1 of 7 shots from outside the three-point line in the first half, and he hit the first three-pointer until 33 seconds left in the second quarter. He only scored 3 points in the half game, but he had 6 rebounds and 5 assists to help the team connect the offense.

Hilder scored 22 points in the first half and became the surprise of this game.

But twists and turns are destined to be the keywords of this round of series. When the Warriors entered the second half with a 12-point advantage, the Rockets woke up from a dream and began to exert their strength in the third quarter, once narrowing the double-digit score difference to 5 points. At the critical moment, Curry finally stood up and stabilized his advantage with his signature three-pointer. In the last quarter, when the Rockets narrowed the score difference again, Curry stood up again and widened the score difference to double digits again. Curry only scored 22 points in the whole game. Although he was still far from his average score in the tiebreak battle, he scored 14 points in the last quarter, which became the key to the team's final stop. When 2 minutes left in the game, Curry made his signature "good night" celebration and bid farewell to the Rockets.

NBA playoff history, there have been 153 tiebreak games so far. Previously, the home team won 113 games. And this time, the Warriors became the one who "don't accept their fate".

Green is invisible in the tiebreak battle, and he still has a long way to go to carry this rocket.

For the young Rockets, although they have not yet broken through the curse of the "Fire War" in the past 10 years, this tuition fee is crucial to their future. In fact, at the beginning of the season, the US media predicted that the Rockets would become the biggest dark horse of the season, and they also won 52 wins in the regular season, ranking second in the West. However, they met Curry and Green, who were more experienced in the playoffs, and Jimmy Butler.

In the past 10 years, the "Fire War" has left too many topics, such as "Don't Go Out of the Bound", "Don't Fallen", "Judgement Summit", etc., and now, the grudges between this old enemy are still accumulating, and Curry continues to play the Rockets' "divorce".