Curry leads Warriors to road win as Houston stumbles in playoff opener

Seven home teams achieved starting victories at the beginning of the NBA playoffs, and the only away team celebrated was the basketball players of Golden State, who beat Houston 95-85.

With that, Golden State took home advantage from the second team of the regular season in the West, and Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler led Golden State to the opening victory. The two combined to score 56 of Golden State's 95 points. Curry finished the game with 31 points on 5-9 3-pointers and six rebounds, while Butler scored 25 points with six assists and seven rebounds.

Brandin Podziemski was the only player in double figures in the visiting team, who had 14 points, five assists and eight rebounds.

The key in everything was the second quarter, which Golden State won with 29-13, which led to the break with a 47-34 advantage. In the continuation, the guests kept the advantage and did not allow Houston to return to the first game and turn around.

Alperen Sengun was the only upbeat Houston player with 26 points and nine rebounds, while Dillon Brooks and Jabari Smith Jr. scored 11 each.

Oklahoma City and Cleveland

Oklahoma City and Cleveland, the best teams in their conferences, achieved convincing victories at the start of the confrontation against Memphis and Miami. Oklahoma City's basketball players were especially inspired at the start, beating Memphis 131-80 and thereby achieving the fifth most convincing victory in the history of the playoffs.

All five of Oklahoma City were in double digits in terms of points, and the player from the bench, Aaron Wiggins, scored the most 21. Jalen Williams added 20 with six assists and five rebounds, Chet Holmgren 19 with ten rebounds, and the best local player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 15 points with five assists.

The only one at the right level for Memphis was Ja Morant with 17 points, four assists and three rebounds. Memphis basketball players shot only 34 percent from the field, and for three points a miserable 17.6 percent, hitting only six of 34 such shots.

Miami was behind in Cleveland for a long time, but also constantly threatened. But in the end, Cleveland won 121-100 thanks mostly to Ty Jerome, who played the first game of his career in the playoffs. Jerome scored 16 of the total of 28 points in the last quarter when the score was broken.

Cleveland's first scorer was Donovan Mitchell with 30 points, and he added four assists and five rebounds. Darius Garland scored 27 points with five assists.

For Miami, Bam Adebayo scored 24 points with nine rebounds, while Tyler Herro scored 21.

Boston beat Orlando 103-86 in front of their fans even though their two best players, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, combined to shoot a poor 14-36. In addition, Tatum scored only one of eight three-pointers.

Orlando led 49-48 at halftime, but Boston turned the tide in the third quarter, winning 30-18. Derrick White scored 30 points for Boston, and Payton Pritchard scored 19. In Orlando, everything fell on the backs of Paolo Bancher and Franz Wagner. The former scored 36 points with 11 rebounds, while the latter gave 23 points with five assists.