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HOUSTON – The best basketball player on Earth could seemingly do everything.

He knifed through defenders big and small. He nailed pull-up jumpers. He attacked the basket. Just because it became easy for Kevin Durant to score anytime he wanted, though, it did not mean it became easy for him to bail out the Warriors.

They still suffered a 126-121 overtime loss to the Houston Rockets in Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals on Saturday. Durant may have finished with 46 points while shooting 14-of-31 from the field, 6-of-10 from 3 and 12-of-12 from the line. Yet, that meant little since Durant lacked the support to complement his greatness.

“Numbers don’t really matter,” Durant said. “They don’t tell the whole story.”

Durant referred to Draymond Green’s triple double in points (19), rebounds (11) and assists (10). But Durant may as well have been referring to himself.  Durant recorded his second highest output of his NBA playoff career, yet the Warriors offered little else to prevent the Rockets from trimming their series lead to 2-1.

Stephen Curry had 17 points while going 7-of-23 from the field and 2-of-9 from 3. Klay Thompson had 16 points on only a 6-of-16 clip and a 2-of-6 mark from downtown. And after dominating this category in the Warriors’ first two wins, the Rockets won the rebounding effort offensively (17-7) and overall (55-35), which Durant considered “the reason why they won the game.”

“We had our chances. But let’s be honest, it would’ve been a steal if we had won that game,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “They outplayed us.”

Thanks to Durant’s play, though, the Warriors still had a chance. After scoring 12 points on only 5-of-14 shooting in the first half, Durant became both more efficient and productive in the second.

“Just play good basketball,” Durant said. “Play my brand, be aggressive and take each possession seriously. Nothing different.

In the third quarter, Durant had 17 points by mostly drawing fouls (9-of-9) and prolific from 3 (2-of-2). In the fourth quarter, Durant scored 10 of his 12 points in the first 1:51 by taking advantage of the Rockets’ multiple single coverages. He also set up open 3’s for Thompson and Andre Iguodala, who gave the Warriors a 112-110 lead with 45.9 seconds left.

“He was a killer out there. He single handedly gave us a lead to start the fourth quarter,” Curry said. “Once you get the lead and start to settle in, the vibe changes obviously.”

Durant could have secured the win had he made a 18-foot pull-up with 19.2 seconds left in regulation. That does not fall on Durant, though. While he went 5-of-9 in the fourth quarter, the rest of the Warriors went a combined 5-of-14. Durant then scored five of the team’s nine points in overtime.

“Kevin is unstoppable basically. There is nothing you can do on a lot of them,” Kerr said. “When you have a guy like that on your team, it gets everybody confidence. We finally had some traction in the game and got our momentum. He did his job and we just couldn’t quite finish the game.”

The Warriors might have had Curry shot better. Fair to wonder if his dislocated left middle finger affected his play, but Curry insisted otherwise. Regardless, he missed a handful of left-handed layups. He even missed a dunk on the final play, which he said captured his game-long frustration.

“I was feeling pretty good,” Curry said. “I was frustrated too with the rest of the night. Not my finest moment.”

Thompson did not show his finest moment, either. He forced a jump ball on Houston guard Chris Paul with 1.5 seconds left in regulation and went 5-of-10 in the second half. Before that, though, Thompson went 1-of-5 from the field. Kerr partly faulted himself for not drawing up more plays earlier for Thompson, but he swatted that away as quickly as he shoots.

“That’s not on Steve. It’s on myself to get myself going,” Thompson said. “Be aggressive and the shots will come.”

That is exactly what Durant has been doing. Ever since he recorded more turnovers (nine) than shots (eight) in the Warriors’ Game 2 loss to the Clippers in the first round, Durant has morphed into a different player.

In the past six games, Durant has averaged 38.33 points while shooting 50.7 percent from the field. Still, Durant became unsatisfied he shot a 42.6 percent clip in the Warriors’ first two wins over Houston. In Game 3, though, Durant walked away with numbers that suited his high standards.

If only the rest of the Warriors could match his.

“We got out played,” Kerr said. “They played really well. I thought Houston deserved to win.”

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