Warriors stave off elimination, defeat the Thunder, 120-111

After two days in a stressful spot, facing the prospect of an early summer break and the burden of so much having gone wrong so quickly, Stephen Curry wanted to be heard.

He removed his mouthpiece with just over a minute to play Thursday night in Oracle Arena, turned toward courtside fans and let them know the Golden State Warriors weren’t finished.

“We ain’t going home!” Curry yelled. “We ain’t going home!”

The Warriors are going back to Oklahoma City after a 120-111 victory over the Thunder in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals narrowed their deficit to 3-2 in the best-of-seven series.

Curry ensured that the defending NBA champions would play at least one more game by scoring 31 points and finishing off the Thunder in the closing minutes. Curry poked the ball away from Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant for a steal before driving past Steven Adams and Serge Ibaka to flip in a layup with 62 seconds left.

The basket put the Warriors ahead by 10 points and prompted Curry to make his proclamation.

“That’s great grammar, right?” Curry said later before giving a nod to his alma mater. “My Davidson people would be very embarrassed.”

Game 6 will be Saturday at Oklahoma City, where the Thunder won Games 3 and 4.

Curry was back to looking like a two-time most valuable player after two of the worst games of his season, scoring 12 points in the fourth quarter. He made nine of 20 shots overall and added seven rebounds, six assists and five steals.

“I thought he looked like 91%,” Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said, poking fun at a report that Curry was only about 70% recovered from a knee injury.

Golden State’s Draymond Green was also back to resembling his dynamic self with 11 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, four blocks and one technical foul. Klay Thompson scored 27 points for the Warriors and Andrew Bogut had 15 points and 14 rebounds.

Durant scored 40 points on an inefficient 12-for-31 shooting night, missing a three-pointer that could have pulled the Thunder to within three points with 35 seconds left. Teammate Russell Westbrook added 31 points but made only 11 of 28 shots after arriving at the arena in his usual all-black elimination-game outfit complete with leopard-print shoes.

Westbrook committed seven turnovers and one postgame blunder when he couldn’t contain his laughter in response to a reporter’s question about Curry being an underrated defender. Durant remained composed and said he liked the matchup with Curry on Westbrook.

Green picked up his first technical foul of the series early in the third quarter after fouling Durant on a three-pointer. It was Green’s fifth technical in the playoffs, putting him two short of an automatic one-game suspension.

He made up for it later in the quarter after taking an outlet pass from Bogut for a layup. Fouled by Ibaka, he punctuated the play with his usual celebratory arm flex.

Bogut, who had been a foul-plagued nonfactor over the first four games of the series, nearly had a double-double by halftime with 10 points and eight rebounds. He also disrupted the Thunder around the basket, where they repeatedly had trouble finishing plays.

Green looked more like the player everyone remembered in the early going, running stride for stride with Westbrook and blocking his layup against the backboard and later finding Curry for a three-pointer in transition.

Green had received a text from the recently retired Kobe Bryant after Game 4 posing a simple question: If making history was easy, why bother? Of course, the Warriors probably never imagined they would have to piggyback trying to become the 10th team in NBA history to rally from a 3-1 series deficit on top of collecting a record 73 victories during the regular season.

Their bid lives on at least two more days.

Follow Ben Bolch on Twitter @latbbolch