Warriors stay perfect with 23-point comeback over Clippers

The Los Angeles Clippers held a 23-point lead midway through the second quarter Thursday, but that wasn't nearly enough against Stephen Curry and the reigning champions.

Curry scored 40 points and sparked an unthinkable 25-8 run to close the fourth quarter and help his Golden State Warriors remain undefeated with a 124-117 victory at the Staples Center.

"I never thought we were really out of it," Warriors interim head coach Luke Walton said after his team completed the biggest comeback of the year to improve to 13-0.

He was right.

The win, however, was far from easy.

With Chris Paul having recovered from a groin injury, the Clippers immediately jumped on the Warriors with a 41-point first quarter. Paul played no small part in that, as he opened the game with 18 points on a perfect 7-of-7 shooting from the floor against some admittedly lackadaisical defense from the Warriors.

Related: Klay Thompson has no idea where Chris Paul went

The Clippers' lead climbed as high as 23 points before the Warriors started to whittle away in the second half.

Warriors forward Draymond Green captained the charge in the third quarter. He's usually known for his defense, but Green exploded for 13 points with three treys in the frame to bring the Warriors within striking distance.

Harrison Barnes took the torch from Green to start the fourth. He opened the final frame with eight points in three minutes to cut the lead to single digits before Walton subbed in his unstoppable small-ball unit.

And that's when the threes started falling.

A pair of threes from Curry cut it to seven. Another two wide-open triples from Andre Iguodala brought it to two. And another two triples from each of the Splash Brothers put the game away for good.

In the wake of it all, as Curry stood at the free-throw line for his 39th and 40th points of the game, faint chants of "MVP" could be heard from the stunned Clippers hopeful.

But as Curry told TNT's Rachel Nichols after the game, he's far from satisfied with he and his team's performance, especially after another slow start.

"The stats look good, but I gotta play better," he said flatly.

Well, for the time being, the league's reigning MVP will just have to settle for the third-best start in NBA history while the league shudders in their wake.