{"id":712995,"date":"2026-04-18T06:56:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712995\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T06:56:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:56:57","slug":"green-led-suns-drop-warriors-clinch-8-seed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712995\/","title":{"rendered":"Green-led Suns drop Warriors, clinch 8 seed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jalen Green soars in to score two of his game-high 36 points in Friday\u2019s 111-96 victory over the Warriors.<\/p>\n

PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Jalen Green scored 36 points, Devin Booker added 20 and the Phoenix Suns locked down Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors, winning 111-96 in the SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament<\/a> Friday night.<\/p>\n

The Suns took the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference playoffs and will face the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday in Game 1. The Warriors\u2019 season is over.<\/p>\n

Green shot 14-for-20 from the field, including 8-for-14 on 3-pointers. Jordan Goodwin scored 19 points, had nine rebounds and was a menace on defense with six steals.<\/p>\n

Booker and Golden State\u2019s Draymond Green were both assessed two technical fouls late in the fourth quarter after exchanging words multiple times and were ejected.<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old Curry couldn\u2019t get many clean looks and finished with 17 points on 4-for-16 shooting. Brandin Podziemski led the Warriors with 23 points.<\/p>\n

Phoenix led by five at the break and built a 69-53 advantage with 5:12 left in third after a fast-break layup by Royce O\u2019Neale. It was 85-72 with 10:12 remaining.<\/p>\n

There was reason to believe the lead wasn\u2019t safe. Phoenix blew an 11-point, fourth-quarter lead in a loss to Portland on Tuesday night, while Golden State clawed back from a 13-point fourth-quarter hole to beat the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night, which led to the winner-take-all matchup Friday.<\/p>\n

The Warriors looked as if they might have another comeback brewing \u2014 Curry hit a 3-pointer that cut the margin to 85-78 with 9:30 left \u2014 but the Suns responded with the next seven points.<\/p>\n

The Suns avoided becoming the first team to lose both Play-In Tournament games on their home floor. The current format was established in 2021.<\/p>\n

Golden State\u2019s Kristaps Porzingis played through right ankle soreness, the result of an injury Wednesday against the Clippers. The 7-foot-3 center played just 15 minutes and finished with 11 points.<\/p>\n

The Suns built an early 13-2 lead after the Warriors turned the ball over four times. Phoenix pushed the advantage to 33-15 through one quarter after Golden State shot just 30%, including 1-for-9 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

But the Warriors recovered, cutting it to 50-45 by halftime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jalen Green soars in to score two of his game-high 36 points in Friday\u2019s 111-96 victory over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,88898,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-712995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-suns-warriors","16":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116424412873605583","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}