Toronto Raptors 121-113 Golden State Warriors

Despite the Warriors' disappointing 14-48 record this season, their fans had at least one reason to celebrate at the Chase Center on Thursday – Stephen Curry returned after missing 58 games in 127 days.

"It feels like the first day of school pretty much all over again, which is exciting. I feel pretty comfortable and pretty confident on where I'm at physically. I'm just excited to get back out there," said Curry.

Since Draymond Green sat on this game, Curry became the Warriors' only orchestrator when he's on the court. He played about six minutes in the first quarter, delivered two assists but scored zero points missing two 3-pointers.

Curry did not make Warriors fans wait too long for his first point. At 10:09 in the second quarter, he held the ball in the right elbow, raised his hands, pretending to shoot. His former teammate Patrick McCaw was lured to leap by the fake move before Curry finished a three-point play on McCaw.

Of course what fans really looked forward to seeing is always the moment when Curry drains the triple. At 7:41, Curry received the ball in the left wing. He first dodged the defense of OG Anunoby, shot the ball and then "Splash."

That's the first of the three 3-pointers buried by Curry in this game. The other two were even more remarkable: Curry made his second shot from the arch on McCaw's face and the third one while drawing a foul on Kyle Lowry.

Having gone 6-16 in field goals and 3-12 in 3-pointers, Curry dropped 23 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in his returning game. In order not to over-exert Curry, coach Steve Kerr only gave him 27 minutes on the court.

"Over the next couple weeks, I want to get him back to his normal 32- or 34-minute a night role. At that point, he could really get some good time on the floor with Andrew and with Draymond, the three of them together. And then all of our young guys, who he hasn't played with," said Kerr.

Despite their toughness in the game, Golden State still suffered their 10th straight home loss. Toronto's swingman Norman Powell was totally unstoppable to get game-high 37 points at an FG rate of 65 percent (13-20). However, the true hero behind the team's win was Lowry. Not only did he score 26 points via four 3-pointers and 10 free throws, the 33-year-old also delivered 10 assists which kept the game's rhythm in Toronto's control in the last few minutes.

This was the 44th victory claimed by Toronto this season and their 44-18 record's good enough to book the team a seat in the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.

Los Angeles Clippers 120-105 Houston Rockets

The Clippers extended their "complete-squad winning-streak" to 10 with a big win at the Toyota Center. It only took Kawhi Leonard 29 minutes to score team-high 25 points. He apparently learnt a lesson from the last loss – instead of tussling with P.J. Tucker, James Harden and their strong lower bodies, Leonard kept striking in transition or via jumpers around screens. He became such a big headache for the Rockets' defense that when Leonard was on the court, the Clippers won by 33 points, the highest of all players in the game.

The two centers of the Clippers, Ivica Zubac and Montrezl Harrell also had their own ways in offense. In simply 20 minutes, Zubac was perfect 5-5 in FG to get 17 points and 12 rebounds. Harrell though did not share Zubac's huge height advantage, he's strong enough to bully the fragile interior defense of the Rockets with 19 points and 10 rebounds.

Houston's loss was understandable because of the born defect of their centerless squad, not to mention that the team were only 6-42 from the 3-point line. Certain parts of this game still qualified as "strange."

It's known to everybody that Houston chose to remove center from their squad for better spacing on the court and faster game pace. There are understandably fluctuations with the team's 3-point rate but it's hard to defend the team for losing to the Clippers in fast break.

There's more. It won't be easy to break through the defense of Leonard or Paul George even for James Harden. However, hesitating in front of Marcus Morris was a different story. Morris may be reliable in defending strong forwards like LeBron James, but Harden should have no problem destroying him with the signature pace-changing moves. Harden's lack of aggressiveness hurt Houston's offense even more than his 0-8 performance from downtown.

Other results on Thursday (home teams in bold):

Denver Nuggets 114-112 Charlotte Hornets

Philadelphia 76ers 125-108 Sacramento Kings