Stephen Curry inserted the dagger with 2:55 to play and Buddy Hield twisted it in the hearts of the Houston Rockets on the next possession.

After three tries and a hard-fought Game 7, the Warriors are moving on, and while that became clear when Curry sank a step-back 3 to put them up by 17, it was only fitting that Hield was the one who put a bow on the 103-89 win Sunday night.

The corner 3 to extend the lead to 20 was Hield’s eighth of the night, and he would add one more before time expired to finish with a team-best 33 points on 9-of-11 shooting from distance.

“That’s what the game called for and he answered it,” Curry said.

“And if I didn’t throw him a grenade, he would have been 9 for 10,” added Draymond Green. “He made winning plays all night.”

True, Hield logged a season-high 37 minutes, took on defensive assignments against Fred VanVleet and Jalen Green and didn’t stop making 3s after halftime.

But in the first Game 7 of his career, Hield will be most remembered for his first half.

The Warriors entered the locker room up 51-39, mostly thanks to 22 points from a red-hot Hield. With the Rockets successfully stifling Batman (Curry) and Robin (Jimmy Butler III), Alfred knocked down six of his seven 3-point attempts before intermission.

“Buddy getting hot changed the whole game in the first half,” coach Steve Kerr said.

It’s impossible to know where the Warriors would be without Hield’s lights-out display in the first half, but Kerr said he “never wavered” over keeping him in the starting five.

The shooting bonanza came just one game after Hield was held scoreless while missing all four of his attempts from the field in a Game 6 loss. He scored four points in Game 5 and combined for seven — with one 3-pointer — in the first two games of the series.

His best game so far came off the bench, when he scored 17 in Game 3 and convinced Kerr to insert him into the starting lineup for Game 4.