Golden State needed Stephen Curry at his sharpest to escape Orlando on Saturday night, and the 38-year-old delivered. His 41 points carried the Warriors to a 126–119 overtime victory over the Magic, extending their winning streak to seven after an 0–3 start. Curry added six rebounds and six assists, but the defining contribution was his ability to produce a clean scoring answer whenever Orlando threatened to steal the game. The NBA's confirmed final puts Golden State at 7–3 and Orlando at 2–7.
This wasn't a straightforward front-running win. The Warriors led 57–41 at half-time, only for Orlando to dominate the third quarter 37–20 and enter the fourth ahead 78–77. Franz Wagner finished with 30 points and 11 assists, giving the Magic a playmaker capable of turning their improved second-half attack into a genuine upset opportunity. Golden State's early control had disappeared; the final period became a succession of possessions in which neither side could afford a careless defensive read.
Curry kept answering. With the scores tied late in regulation, he repeatedly found space for drives and threes, then put the Warriors ahead 110–108 with a layup and 25.2 seconds remaining. Orlando refused to go away: Jamal Cain's put-back with roughly two seconds left forced overtime. Cain finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds off the bench, and that last intervention was a fitting snapshot of Orlando's biggest advantage. The Magic relentlessly attacked the offensive glass even as their perimeter shooting proved less reliable.
The rebounding disparity was extraordinary. Orlando collected 24 offensive rebounds to Golden State's three, yet the Warriors still won because they made their attempts count. Golden State shot 53.8 per cent from the field against Orlando's 38.1 per cent, a gulf large enough to survive the Magic's many extra opportunities. The contrast explains both why Orlando remained alive deep into the night and why the Warriors could still finish the job. More shots don't automatically become more points when the quality of the looks is so different. The Associated Press game report confirms the decisive late possessions and supporting performances.
Overtime offered another test of Golden State's depth. Rookie Yaxel Lendeborg supplied an important three-pointer and finished with 23 points and eight rebounds, while Brandin Podziemski contributed 15 points. Draymond Green's 13 assists mattered too: even on a night dominated by Curry's scoring, the Warriors needed the ball moved into the right hands rather than simply waiting for another difficult shot. Curry's go-ahead three-point play with 1:38 remaining in overtime, followed by another basket, finally gave Golden State the separation it couldn't maintain in regulation.
The result also adds another remarkable line to Curry's late-career record. It was his 16th 40-point game since turning 35, moving him ahead of LeBron James for the most in NBA history. That's a milestone worth recognising, but the immediate basketball story is more interesting: Golden State has turned a winless opening three games into seven consecutive victories, and its veteran leader remains capable of controlling the highest-pressure possessions without needing every possession to look the same. Reuters' match coverage also details Curry's overtime intervention and the Warriors' recovery.
Orlando can take something from the fightback, particularly Wagner's creation and Cain's work around the rim, but the Magic's 2–7 record makes the missed opportunity sting. Generating so many extra possessions and still losing by seven points exposes a finishing problem, not a lack of effort. For Golden State, this was less a demonstration of perfect basketball than of an increasingly useful habit: when a game gets untidy, Curry can still turn a handful of possessions into the difference between a collapse and another win.
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