Buddy hell! Hield torches poor Rockets

Warriors seal semis, Pacers crush Cavs

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The Golden State Warriors punched their ticket to the second round of the NBA playoffs on Sunday, shaking off two straight defeats to grab a 103-89 game-seven victory over the Houston Rockets.

The Warriors were the last team to advance to the conference semi-finals, which got under way earlier on Sunday with the Indiana Pacers handing the Eastern Conference top seeds Cleveland a 121-112 defeat on their home floor.

On a Warriors team stacked with post-season experience, Buddy Hield — playing in his 11th playoff gamed — drilled nine three-pointers on 11 attempts on the way to a game-high 33 points.

Stephen Curry scored 14 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter as the Warriors finally frustrated the second-seeded Rockets, who were coming off two dominant victories and had visions of becoming just the 14th team to rally from 3-1 down to win an NBA playoff series.

“A lot of resilience,’ Curry said. “Everybody stepping up. Everybody's been talking about our team the last two games in terms of our execution, our energy, all that.