Pain in his left leg couldn't stop Stephen Curry on his way to his gala performance for the Golden State Warriors' important finals win.

The NBA superstar scored 43 points in the 107:97 against the Boston Celtics, in the hard-fought series the Celtics are now 2:2 instead of 3:1 before the fifth game on Tuesday morning (3:00 a.m. CEST) – and everything is back open in the championship wrangling of the best basketball league in the world.

"There's been a lot of talk over the past 48 hours about how we're going to get back on this show," Curry said, still panting, at the deafeningly loud TD Garden in Boston minutes earlier.

"It's crazy, but I think we can still play a little better." He also emphasized the importance of success at the press conference from a distance: "It means everything if you realize the urgency of keeping us alive in this series hold and get some momentum on our side.”

Ever since Celtics pro Al Horford fell on Curry's left leg two days earlier, Warriors fans had been anxiously awaiting just how badly the pain would affect their best player.

Apparently: not at all.

"It never seemed like a factor," noted Warriors coach Steve Kerr.

Curry was in the game straight away and with twelve points he helped turn the early deficit into a lead before the end of the first quarter.

The lead changed back and forth a total of eleven times – the fact that it ended up staying with the Warriors was largely due to Curry's converted late shots and his total of 43 points.

Ten rebounds were also outstanding.

Other NBA stars tweeted their appreciation for the performance, including LeBron James and Joel Embiid.

Curry himself cheered extroverted as rarely.

"Steph doesn't usually show a lot of emotion," Kerr said.

"This man's heart is incredible.

He went out there and took us on his shoulders," praised Curry's teammate Klay Thompson, rating the performance as the best he'd seen from Curry in a playoff game: "He was incredible." Seven of Curry's three-pointers went in, as in the previous three games, he scored at least five times from long range – that has never happened in an NBA Finals series.

The Celtics convinced as a team, as they did in the home win two days earlier, and again and again defended the Warriors in a very disciplined manner.

But weak attempts from three in the final quarter cost them the lead and the win.

Jayson Tatum was the most successful Celtics pro on the field with 23 points.

In contrast to the first two matches of the final series, national basketball player Daniel Theis was again not used.

With 17 titles, the Celtics have significantly more than the Warriors, who are hoping for championship number seven.

Between 2015 and 2019, however, the San Francisco side was in the finals and won three championships - the team's recent experience, with the likes of Thompson, Draymond Green and Curry being one of the Warriors' trump cards in this one Finals duel.

"This is my sixth time here," Curry said.

In the Celtics squad, on the other hand, it is the first series of finals for everyone.