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Before Logo Lillard became a trending moniker for the Portland Trail Blazers’ superstar point guard – before several in the collective NBA hivemind contracted a serious bout of retrograde amnesia – there was Stephen Curry doing all sort of things a conventional shooter, let alone a conventional basketball player, should not be doing.
This was one of them:
It was vintage Curry in 2021 NBA basketball, a time when the current NBA powers are still located in California but are no longer located within the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Golden State Warriors are no longer the nigh-unbeatable superpower that was once admired, reviled, and even feared. Curry remains one of two constants in an otherwise different-looking and – to be quite frank – inferior version of the Warriors.
After the departure of Kevin Durant and the successive ACL and Achilles injuries that forced Klay Thompson to be sidelined, Curry has once again become the undisputed center of the Warriors’ solar system, a radiating ball of energy that is the source of a never-ending perpetual motion machine – except that unlike in years past, the machine has run aground a few times and hasn’t run as smoothly as it once did.
In this latest 134-132 loss to the Dallas Mavericks, that machine hit another snag, despite Curry’s strong 57-point performance that included an 11-of-19 clip (57.9%) from three-point range.
No other praise rang louder than the one Warriors head coach Steve Kerr gave Curry’s performance, despite having coached him for 7 years and seeing other performances of similar magnitude.
“Sublime,” Kerr said of Curry’s feat. “It was ridiculous, the shots he was hitting, the degree of difficulty, the ease with which he made them. He’s never played better… I’ve never seen him like this. He just looks so strong to me… just getting by people, fending them off on drives to the rim [and] finishing, and of course the shot-making, it’s almost unfathomable.”
Kent Bazemore was more succinct – and perhaps controversial, depending on one’s view of the current basketball hierarchy – in his praise of his teammate.
“Best player in basketball right now,” Bazemore said of Curry.
This latest explosion from the two-time MVP and three-time NBA champion was the eighth 50-plus-point game of Curry’s career. It was only the second time the Warriors lost in such games, bringing the Warriors’ total record to 6-2 when Curry scores at least 50 points.
The last time Curry lost? Eight years ago, on February 28, 2013, when he put up 54 points against Carmelo Anthony’s New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden, in what was then his career high in points scored in a regular-season game.
He has since broken that record with his 62 points against Portland earlier this season, the difference being that the 62 he scored resulted in a huge victory. (READ: Why Steph Curry’s 62 points prove his detractors and critics wrong)
There is no doubt that the impact of a historic performance is contingent on the end result, and Curry was well aware of that fact.
“It is frustrating when you have a night like that and it didn’t lead to a win,” Curry said after the game. “I’d be lying if I said I was happy right now.”
Kerr echoed his superstar’s sentiments regarding the muted impact of Curry’s performance.
“A loss stings regardless,” Kerr said. “A night like that, you just want Steph to be able to celebrate with his teammates, and if you win, obviously, everybody’s joyous in the locker room… You lose the game and you don’t get to celebrate, and that’s the way it goes.”
The Mavericks had a lot to do with why the Warriors weren’t able to celebrate Curry’s big night.
The 31-point shellacking the Warriors doled out days prior lit a fire under the Mavericks’ collective backside. It was apparent when they stormed out of the gates with an 18-2 run to open the 1st quarter.
The Mavericks, whose defense was stretched thin trying to fend off Curry and his gravity-warping nature a few days ago, found their answer early on during their rematch: They went away with their drop defense and met Curry at the level of the screen on pick-and-rolls, an effort to take away open looks as much as possible.
It worked – for a while. It was only a matter of time until Curry adjusted to his opponent’s adjustment. Every great player has that uncanny ability to shrug off whatever obstacle is thrown at them, and Curry was no different.
Using a slow-footed big man such as Kristaps Porzingis to meet Curry at the level of the screen was countered by Curry just being faster, more agile, and more capable of using his handles and footwork to make his defender look foolish.
It was one of many ways the Mavericks tried to slow Curry down, in addition to the usual traps, doubles, and hedges that forced Curry to either give up possession or to prevent him from getting the ball in the first place.
But those strategies can often backfire. The danger of Curry curling off screens and going up for a shot instills a sense of urgency – fear, even – that often results in one of Curry’s teammates being left open.
A few of Curry’s teammates benefited from his presence on the floor, namely Kent Bazemore, who scored 16 points in the first half and finished with 20.
Andrew Wiggins was the second leading scorer, finishing with 22 points on 9-of-12 shooting from the field and 3-of-5 from three-point range, two of which Curry helped set up.
It was evident that offense was far from being the Warriors’ problem against the Mavericks; Curry almost singlehandedly made sure of that, with Bazemore, Wiggins, and Draymond Green’s 15 assists providing some much-needed scoring and playmaking support.
It was the Warriors defense that was not up to par. The 134 points they gave up provided the gist, but the underlying numbers told the entire story: allowing the Mavericks to shoot 21-of-47 (44.7%) on three-point shots, and putting up a defensive rating of 126.4 points allowed per 100 possessions.
Luka Dončić matched the intensity of Curry’s night, finishing with 42 points on 7-of-12 shooting from beyond the arc. Porzingis, who seldom used his 7-foot-3-inch height in the first game, made better use of it this time, ducking in against much smaller defenders and getting a couple of post turnaround hooks and offensive rebounds against the relatively-diminutive Warriors.
The most damning number, however, was the number of times the Warriors fouled and sent the Mavericks to the free throw line: 30 attempts, 25 of which the Mavericks made.
Several of those fouls were controversial, such as this one that sent Dončić to the line for 3 shots:
Wanton fouling has been a major problem for the Warriors so far this season, as evidenced by the 28.3 free-throw attempts they cough up to opponents per game – the most in the league. As a consequence, they also have the highest opponents’ free-throw rate in the league, with opponents making 25.8 free throws per 100 field goal attempts, per Cleaning the Glass.
Those facts did not stop Kerr, Bazemore, and Wiggins from sounding off on what they thought of lean-in fouls shooters often use to get themselves to the line.
“I don’t fault the officials for making those calls, I fault the league,” Kerr said. “To me it’s not a basketball play. If you jump 3 feet forward, I don’t think you deserve a foul when all you’re doing is looking for the foul… It’s gotten out of control with gifting offensive players the ability to deceive the refs.”
“I just don’t think it’s a basketball play,” Bazemore said. “When you give the offensive player that kind of upper hand, a little bit of the physicality has been taken out of the game.”
“Sometimes it’s a foul, [but] I don’t think I fouled him though,” said Wiggins, who was the victim of the call. “He kind of threw his body into me, jumped 3 feet forward… so I think that was a pretty bogus call.”
Curry was more diplomatic and measured in his response, but he delivered what was perhaps the main zinger to conclusively close the lid on the controversy.
“It’s a fine line between going out of your way to look for that contact when you have an open shot [and] the defender’s not really moving towards you, or invading your space and you kind of seek out that contact,” Curry said.
“At the end of the day, I don’t try it as much, because I feel like if I get space, I can knock it down.”
Such is the mindset of the greatest shooter of all time, having the utmost confidence in his own ability to make a shot without the need to draw a foul or to force the officials’ whistles. Honor-bound – almost to a fault, at times – but admirable.
Hence, why he has received the accolades he has garnered over the past decade, and why he is admired not only by fans and students of the game of basketball, but also by his predecessors and peers within the NBA fraternity.
Mark Jackson, current ESPN analyst and former head coach of the Warriors, put it best: “Steph Curry is your favorite shooter’s favorite shooter.” – Rappler.com
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