“In the playoffs, you need guys to step up. And it was Gary’s night.”
Payton needed just two shots to make his mark. The first came with Golden State on the precipice of closing in on the Nuggets lead — Otto Porter Jr., mugged by DeMarcus Cousins on one corner, hurled a cross-court pass to Payton, wide open on the other corner.
The second 3 was a dagger. With just over a minute remaining and Denver trailing by two, Draymond Green passed up a wide-open layup under the basket to find Payton II beyond the arc from the wing. After a little fumble, swish.Payton was “unfazed,” as coach Steve Kerr said, by the moment. A thread Kerr pulled early in the game when the Warriors looked just listless enough to let Denver extend the series.
“I guess when you’ve bounced around like he has,” Kerr said. “Been in the G-League, played on ten-day contracts, never really found a home, there’s a lot more pressure in that then there is in playing in a high-stakes game.” Payton’s defense in the fourth quarter helped Warriors re-establish their pace. Denver’s physicality with Nikola Jokic threw Golden State into disarray in the first half, and next to Draymond Green, Payton’s hands and agility in a zone defense prompted some key stops that got them back in a flow.
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