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Clippers’ season ends as Steph Curry rallies Warriors to a Play-In game win

April 16, 2026

INGLEWOOD — Clippers coach Tyronn Lue insisted he wasn’t nervous going into a Play-In Tournament game against the Golden State Warriors. After the kind of season the Clippers have endured, what is one more game?

But this wasn’t just a regular-season game. This was win or be done with the winners getting another opportunity to extend their season and the losers going on vacation.

Perhaps Lue should have been worried. Steph Curry scored 27 of his 35 points in the second half and the 10th-seeded Warriors closed their electrifying fourth quarter comeback with a 16-6 run for a 126-121 victory on Wednesday night at the Intuit Dome. The Warriors held Clippers star Kawhi Leonard to just two points in the fourth quarter and got key contributions from veterans Draymond Green, Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford to send the stunned ninth-seeded Clippers into the offseason.

The Warriors now travel to face the eighth-seeded Phoenix Suns on Friday for another elimination game with the winner advancing to a best-of-seven first-round playoff series against the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.

Meanwhile, the Clippers are left to contemplate their future.

The Warriors, who had only their second losing regular season under Coach Steve Kerr, gave the Clippers all they could handle but the hosts had an answer for every challenge for most of the night. The Clippers led 98-85 with 9:53 to play, but the 38-year-old Curry led a furious comeback alongside Porzingis (20 points) and the 39-year-old Horford, as the Warriors shot 15 for 20 from the field in the fourth (making eight 3-pointers).

Gui Santos made a layup with 2:45 remaining to get the Warriors within 115-114. Horford then gave them a 117-115 lead on a 3-pointer – his fourth consecutive long-range shot – with 2:12 left.

Brook Lopez tied the score on a pair of free throws but Curry again found his mark, burying his seventh 3-point shot of the night for a 120-117 lead with 50.4 seconds left. A Green steal on an inbound pass led to a Brandin Podziemski three-point play at the other end. Green then stole the ball from Leonard on the ensuing possession and Curry made one of two free throws for a seven-point lead with 32.5 seconds left and closed out the win with two more Podziemski free throws in the final 10 seconds.

The Clippers took an 89-83 lead into the final quarter and immediately pushed it to 92-83 on a 3-pointer Bennedict Mathurin, his fifth of the game.

But the Warriors weren’t going away. Buoyed by the vocal Warriors fans, Golden State pulled to within 100-97, forcing Lue to call a timeout with 8:06 left to play.

After the timeout, Garland scored a 3-point play and Curry countered with a layup to keep the game close. Brook Lopez added an 8-foot hook shot to push the Clippers to 105-99 at the 7:21 mark.

Garland, who finished with 21 points and eight assists despite battling foul trouble all night, buried a step-back 3-pointer less than a minute later to give the Clippers a 108-99 lead.

The game featured two future Hall of Famers and NBA champions and old foes in Leonard and Curry. The two All-Stars dueled throughout to the delight of a sellout crowd that had their definite favorites.

Leonard finished with 21 points on 8-of-17 shooting from the field to go with seven rebounds and three assists, while Curry shot 12-for 23 overall and 7 for 12 from 3-point range.

Mathurin led the Clippers with 23 points.

The Clippers came out exactly the way Lue had hoped, running out to a 10-point lead within the first three minutes.

Lue warned his team that they could not take their time getting settled. They couldn’t ease into the game or come in unprepared to face the experienced Warriors, not in this one-and-done game.

“We got to come into the game, with our mindset right, understand defensively how we got to start the game, and not have a lot of game-playing mistakes,” Lue said. “We got to take care of the basketball, can’t turn it over, give them a chance to get out of the transition and score the basketball. … We got to do it right away.”

But these were the Warriors, led by four-time NBA champions Curry and Green, and they didn’t back down. They battled back to pull within 20-19 but trailed 31-22 by the end of the first quarter.

That didn’t seem to faze Golden State, which opened the second quarter on a 13-0 run to take a 35-31 lead. But like most of the leads in this game, it didn’t last as the Clippers regained the advantage on a layup by Kris Dunn and a pullup jumper by Leonard.

Curry had two 3-pointers (one made, the other hit the rim) waved off because of offensive fouls that would have tied the score at 48 in the second quarter, prompting Coach Steve Kerr and Green to engage the referees in lengthy conversations. The Clippers used distraction to their advantage and grabbed a 51-42 lead on consecutive baskets by Jones.

The Warriors again got back into the game on back-to-back 3-pointers by Podziemski and Curry to pull within 52-48, but the Clippers outscored the Warriors in the final 2:35 to take a 61-53 lead into halftime.

More to come on this story.

Orange County Register

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Clippers’ season ends as Steph Curry rallies Warriors to a Play-In game win

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