Steph Curry returned last night from an MCL sprain in his right knee and rattled off 40 points, 17 in overtime, as the Golden State Warriors took a commanding 3-1 lead over the Portland Trailblazers with a 132-125 win in Game 4 of their second-round NBA Playoffs series. It wasn't a typical Steph game, though; he missed the first nine three-pointers he put up and by the end of the regulation he was 2-12 from deep. He could have won the game as time expired in regulation but his running floater just missed the mark, so they went to overtime tied at 111-111. Then Curry went nuts.Curry and Portland's Damian Lillard closed the fourth quarter with a nice battle—Lillard had 12 points in the fourth and finished with 36 overall—trading shots to the delight of the home crowd, but once overtime began, Curry was unstoppable. Curry did not start the game, and was only supposed to play around 25 minutes, but Golden State's Shaun Livingston got ejected just before the first half ended on two quick technical fouls. With no Livingston and the extra period, Curry wound up playing 37 minutes. Lucky us; here's a video of the end of regulation and all of Curry's 17 overtime points.The Blazers actually started off OT pretty hot, building a 116-113 lead, but Curry was finally warming up and a warmed up Curry is hotter than most. He entered overtime with 25 points and before you could look around he'd scored Golden State's first 12 points. The threes started falling, he was getting easy baskets in transition, and he even got an offensive rebound and put-back. After four minutes and some ridiculous shot-making, the game was out of hand and the previously jumping off Moda Center was left stunned and silent.
The series heads back to Golden State on Wednesday where the Warriors can close it out in Game 5.[TNT]
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