Curry’s televised F-bomb prompts a motherly rebuke

Steph Curry is 30 years old now, with a family of his own and a thick beard that hides the baby face that once thrilled Davidson basketball fans.

But he’s not too old to be called down by his own mother, which he was after he launched an exultant, defiant “F-bomb” during his 35-point outburst Sunday night during Golden State’s resounding home victory over Houston in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals.

Curry scored 18 of his 35 points in the third quarter, breaking out of a shooting slump to torch the Rockets on a variety of tricky drives to the basket and his traditional 3-point rainbows. After scoring on one contested drive, Curry stood on the baseline, ripped his mouthpiece out of his mouth to make sure he could be heard clearly by the adoring home crowd and yelled: “This is my (expletive) house!”

I actually enjoyed it. It was a somewhat guilty sort of enjoyment – because I wouldn’t want my own kids screaming a curse word on national television – but enjoyment all the same. It was compelling theater from Curry in part because it was so unexpected – an “R”-rated outburst from the NBA’S cuddly “PG” star.

Curry said he barely remembered the moment afterward because he was in the throes of a heated game, which Golden State won 126-85 to take a 2-1 lead.

“I blacked out,” Curry would say in his postgame press conference about why he said what he said. And then to ESPN about his mother Sonya Curry’s reaction to his profanity: “She already sent me two home videos, showing me the clip and playing it back. She was telling me how I need to wash my mouth out, saying to wash it out with soap.”

Curry received this rebuke like a teenager who knows he’s missed his curfew and accepts his punishment.

“She’s right,” Curry told ESPN. “I gotta do better. I can’t talk like that.”