After giving up the entirety of their once 31-point lead from the second-quarter, the Golden State Warriors fought off the Houston Rockets to claim an impressive but nail-biting overtime victory at Toyota Center on Saturday.
The 127-121 win was not only enough to move the Warriors to 5-1 and remain second in the Western Conference, but also extends their winning-streak over the Rockets to an extraordinary 14 games.
The Warriors broke their overtime hoodoo on Saturday
While Houston weren't able to break the run of dominance Golden State have had over them in recent years, the visitors were able to break their own significant hoodoo that had haunted them for over six seasons.
Per Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area, the Warriors' win on Saturday was their first overtime victory on the road since December 18, 2017 -- nearly seven years ago! In the meantime they've lost 11-straight road overtime games, something of a complete miracle given the often coin-toss nature of overtime games.
Golden State's overtime record in the past few years has been weirdly deplorable in general -- Saturday's win was just their fifth in the last 19 overtime games across the last five years.
Warriors finally broke the Overtime curse 😭 pic.twitter.com/8hUYPjRjAN
— 🌞 (@GameOnSteph_) November 3, 2024
As much as fans (and the team) would have preferred not to go through the stress and anxiety of the overtime period, the win may have actually said more about the Warriors than if they'd ran out with a comfortable double-digit win.
Golden State looked in serious trouble when Houston started the fourth-quarter on an 18-2 run to tie the game. Helped by an active and boisterous home crowd, the Rockets had all the momentum and looked destined to run away with victory.
Instead, the Warriors steadied and looked to have the game in control again in the final minute of regulation. Yet the Rockets sensationally sent the game to overtime, aided by some crucial missed free-throws and untimely turnovers from Golden State.
Playing without Stephen Curry and De'Anthony Melton, and with Draymond Green and Brandin Podziemski fouling out, the Warriors still managed to find a way past the rampant Rockets thanks to their defense and some clutch buckets from Jonathan Kuminga in the overtime period.
Golden State were also 5-1 through six games last season, but if there was ever an indication that this is a better and improved team than that one, this was it. The Warriors of last season would have lost Saturday's game -- we saw that multiple times where they threw away big leads and failed to provide a response.
This was different. The Warriors found something under pressure, broke their overtime road losing-streak, and provided more optimism of what could be possible this season.