SAN FRANCISCO — Batman saved the day while Robin wore a fur coat.
Without the the player that turned their season around, the Warriors were still able to pull out an improbable Game 3 win Saturday, 104-93, to take a 2-1 series lead over the Houston Rockets in their Western Conference first-round playoff matchup.
Listed as questionable on the injury report, Jimmy Butler was ruled out prior to tipoff and his status remains up in the air for Game 4 on Wednesday. Buddy Hield drained five 3-pointers and scored 17 points in his absence and afterward embraced the comic book reference coined by Butler.
“I knew Robin was out,” Hield said, “so I had to step up.”
Steph Curry, Batman to Butler’s Robin, was spectacular as ever, dropping a game-high 36 points on 12-of-23 shooting while being swarmed by Houston defenders. But Golden State would still likely be on the wrong side of a 2-1 series without the contributions from Hield and Gary Payton II.
Once Butler left Game 2 after landing on his tailbone, it was Jonathan Kuminga who received a lion’s share of the minutes. With Butler wearing an ankle-length fur coat over a brown sweatsuit Saturday, the fourth-year forward got the starting nod (alongside Quinten Post, who supplanted Moses Moody) but scored only seven points and didn’t see the court in the fourth quarter.
“You could see we were out of sorts early,” coach Steve Kerr said. “We changed the starting lineup and used some combinations that we barely played all year and it took a while for us to find our rhythm. … Every game’s different. JK can come in next game and have a monster game. I thought he came in and gave us important minutes.”
Instead, Kerr closed with Hield, who provided important spacing, and Payton, an essential part of Golden State’s 2022 championship who proved integral again after an up-and-down regular season. He scored 16, including a corner 3 and a breakaway reverse slam in the final minutes that iced the win.
Payton also often drew the defensive assignment on Jalen Green, who was held to nine points after going off for 38 in the Rockets’ Game 2 win.
“We know G is an incredible defender, but when he’s playing that way offensively, getting to the hole, finishing at the basket, knocking his 3s down, you’re getting that type of two-way basketball from G, it really lifts this team,” Draymond Green said. “It’s just another threat that they have to deal with.”
Curry was held to 2 points in the first quarter and the Warriors trailed 22-18 at the end of the period.
The threat from Hield to stretch the floor and the expertise of Payton in playing alongside Curry, it turned out, unlocked all three players. Curry was able to drive and kick to Hield beyond the arc, get open off screens from Payton and find him backcutting to the bucket.
The trio combined for 69 points — all but five in the final three quarters.
“Buddy flipped (the game), Gary flipped it — both those guys,” Kerr said. “… It’s just about spacing. If they’re going to commit to Steph, you have to be spaced. I thought in the first half we had a few possession where we were bunched up with everybody on the left side of the floor and nobody on the right, so there’s no outlet for Steph. That’s why we got scattered and had some turnovers and near-turnovers.”
The win was only the Warriors’ first without Butler since acquiring him on the day before the trade deadline. They fell at Philadelphia in the one game he was forced to miss in the regular season but were 22-7 when he and Curry both played.
Kerr noted it wasn’t the first time the Warriors had to overcome an injury to a key player midseries, but pulling out a come-from-behind win against the No. 2 seed without their second-best player, the team agreed, only boosted their confidence.
“This is what the playoffs are about,” Kerr said. “They’re about injuries and they’re about guys stepping up. We had both today.”
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“It just kind of reaffirms to ourselves that we can do it,” Green added. “That we’re capable of making any adjustment.”
Nevertheless the Warriors’ hopes ride on Butler’s status going forward. He took an active role on the bench in Game 2, even taking Hield aside at one point after he put the ball on the floor and got stripped by Steven Adams, but will be of far more value on the court.
Kerr said afterward that Butler is “literally day-to-day” and even suggested the extra hours before Monday’s 7 p.m. tipoff could be beneficial.
That wasn’t what was on the top of Kerr’s mind after the win, though.
“He had a fantastic coat on,” Kerr said. “I thought he was going to be too hot in that thing.”
