Warriors' Stephen Curry gives Rockets rude welcome back to playoffs

The Houston Rockets tore their organization down to the ground, went through a full rebuild, and turned themselves back into a contender in relatively short order. Their reward for that quick turnaround: A first-round matchup against Stephen Curry in their first trip back to the playoffs since the 2019-20 season.

Curry and the Golden State Warriors did not give them a very pleasant welcome back to postseason basketball, and instead delivered a pretty strong message that they can still come through in the clutch and be a problem come playoff time.

The Warriors held off a late Rockets rally to pick up a 95-85 Game 1 win on Sunday, highlighted by another monster playoff performance from Curry.

It was not just the fact that he scored a game-high 31 points and was 5-of-9 from three-point range.

It was the fact some of the shots he hit were absolutely crushing, demoralizing shots for the Rockets. The type of shots that just defy all sound reason and logic.

The first of those came in the third quarter to extend Golden State's lead to 23 points.