So much for the Golden State Warriors going out with a whimper. The defending champions used an utterly dominant second half to overcome a disastrous start, beating the Houston Rockets 115-86 on Saturday night to force a do-or-die Game 7.

Klay Thompson led the charge, scoring a game-high 35 points while shooting 9-of-14 from beyond the arc. He also had four steals, shouldering the primary assignment of James Harden, absorbing an early barrage and forcing the future MVP into a tough shooting night. Steph Curry followed suit, scoring 29 points, grabbing five rebounds, dishing six assists and blocking three shots. Like Thompson, he also had a whopping 14 3-point attempts, making five. Kevin Durant, meanwhile, shot just 6-of-17 from the field, but made up for it at the free throw line, connecting on 10-of-14 en route to 23 points, seven rebounds and four assists.

But it was Draymond Green who was the Warriors’ best player with the season on the line. He had four points, 10 rebounds, nine assists, four steals and five blocks, nearly pulling off the heralded five-by-five for the second time in his career. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year was especially effective at the rim, routinely forcing misses with vertical contests and active hands. Just as important was Green’s ability to get a stop, corral the defensive rebound and push the ball up the floor, at which point he’d find open shooters or initiate the type of quick-hitting passing sequences that have the come to define the Warriors under Steve Kerr.

Of course, he was wreaking havoc defensively elsewhere the floor, too.

More Klay!

He has 29!#NBAPlayoffs | #Dubnation pic.twitter.com/ocK65u1NCW

— NBA (@NBA) May 27, 2018

For awhile, it seemed as if Green’s defensive heroics wouldn’t be enough to dig Golden State out of its early hole. The home team fell behind 39-22 after the first quarter, crumbling under a deluge of Rockets 3-pointers and unforced errors on both sides of the ball. The Warriors miscommunicated on several ball screens in the opening minutes, and compounded those issues by being careless with the ball in the halfcourt and transition. If either team was feeling the pressure of an elimination game, it was certainly Golden State.

True to longtime form, though, that wasn’t the case immediately following intermission. Less than three minutes into the third quarter, the Warriors’ 10-point halftime deficit had turned into a one-point lead, on a corner three by Curry following a quick dribble hand-off from Kevon Looney. That was the first of Curry’s three triples in the third quarter; Thompson had four, as the Splash Brothers accounted for all seven of their team’s 3-pointers in the third quarter, which Golden State won 33-16. The fourth quarter was even more lopsided. The Warriors outscored the Rockets 31-9 in the final stanza, pulling away for good after Green found Curry for another triple with 8:35 left, making the score 94-79.

“We just didn’t want to go out like that,” Thompson said.

With Chris Paul in the game, perhaps Houston might have had a puncher’s chance to stage a late-game comeback. But Harden, after a brilliant first quarter, was exhausted by the fourth, and the early-game fireworks provided by Eric Gordon proved fleeting. The isolations that led to so much success in the first half proved far less fruitful later, as the Warriors’ defensive intensity and the Rockets’ lack of ancillary playmaking combined to rear its ugly head. Harden finished with 32 points, seven rebounds and nine assists on 10-of-24 from the field, stellar numbers, but also had nine of Houston’s 21 turnovers – six of which came in that decisive third quarter, and all of which led to 23 Golden State points.

On Thursday, moments after a second consecutive loss in another winnable game, Green expressed extreme confidence about the Warriors’ ability to extend the Western Conference Finals to a final game.

“We’ll be back here for a Game,” he said from Toyota Center. “You’d be a fool not to believe me.”

And if Paul’s healthy, you’d be a fool to think you know who’s winning Game 7 on Monday.