victory margin.
After Brown learned of the Wednesday death of his best friend, Trevin Stede, he was not going to play. But a call from Stede’s mother inspired him. “I feel like he was with me,” Brown said. “I felt like it was me and him.”
Irving praised Brown’s inner strength and performance. “It’s never a good thing when someone’s going through it,” Irving said. “You do your best to console them but at the end of the day it’s the strength within themselves and he showed a lot of that.“To go out there and perform the way he did, I knew exactly where the game ball was going.”
Al Horford had 18 points and a game-high 11 rebounds for Boston and Marcus Morris and Tatum each contributed 12 points.Durant led Golden State with 24 points but Curry was 3-of-14 from the floor for only nine points in his first game back from a bruised right thigh.
“We had control of the game despite how bad we all were shooting,” Curry said. “We just couldn’t sustain our defense when they made a couple of runs.”Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Curry said the chances of a rematch with Boston in the NBA Finals were “very, very likely.”
“They are playing the best right now in the East,” Curry said. “Until they beat Cleveland — they have done it three years in a row — we’ll see.”At Phoenix, James Harden scored 33 of his 48 points in the first half as Houston surged ahead 90-65 at half-time. It was the highest-scoring half for the Rockets since their club-record 94 points against Denver in January 1991.Paul scored11 points, passed out 10 assists, grabbed four rebounds and made two steals in 21 minutes.“It felt good to be back out there with the guys,” Paul said. “It was a good performance.”
Paul, acquired in an off-season trade with the Los Angeles Clippers, had not played since the season opener after being injured in a pre-season game against Memphis on October 11 when he collided with Mario Chalmers.