San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
After cold start, Curry heats up and hits winner
Stephen Curry labored through another poor shooting night, another exercise in frustration. The enduring image of his first half Friday night: clanging a shot off the rim, putting his head down and stoically trotting back on defense, a sequence Warriors fans have witnessed with jarring frequency this season.
So how exactly did the game end with Curry and his teammates dancing in exultation, as giddy as schoolchildren on the playground at recess, while a capacity crowd at Chase Center roared?
Curry added a new layer to his legend with this one. For all he has achieved in his transcendent career — three championships, two MVP awards, more made 3-pointers than any player in NBA history — Curry had never hit a walkoff, game-winning shot at 0:00.
He had made triumphant shots in the closing seconds, absolutely, but not the kind where the buzzer sounds, the ball drops through the net and his teammates immediately mob him. He hadn’t done that since his high school days at Charlotte Christian.
But that’s what happened against Houston. Curry’s 20foot jumper, after shaking free of Kevin Porter Jr., gave the Warriors a 105-103 victory and gave Curry a measure of redemption. He missed his first eight shots of the night, extending his worst shooting season as a pro.
Then, suddenly and improbably, he was the hero.
“That’s the deepest level of confidence a player can have, turning (0-for-8) into a night where he hits the game-winning shot at the buzzer,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “Steph lives by the motto, ‘The next one is going in.’ He genuinely
believes it, and he understands the power behind that thinking.”
Curry chose a good time to unleash his superpower. The Warriors lost in overtime Thursday night to Indiana (17-29 entering Saturday), which owns the Eastern Conference’s third-worst record. Then they found themselves getting bullied by the Rockets (14-33), who own the West’s worst record.
This clearly didn’t sit well with Warriors owner Joe Lacob. He squirmed in his courtside seat all night, alongside former team president Rick Welts. Hall of Famers Rick Barry and Chris Mullin sat nearby, probably wondering what exactly happened to the Warriors they know.
Golden State was disjointed all night, playing sloppy, choppy basketball. So was Curry. But he really does believe the next shot is going in, a dose of brashness he traces to all the hours he spends in the gym, working on his craft.
Curry also credited Bob McKillop, his college coach at Davidson, with convincing him to set aside missed shots no matter how quickly they might accumulate.
“I’ve had that my whole life, but coach McKillop taught me
Stephen Curry, on his recent shooting performance
the next-play mentality,” Curry said. “No matter how the game is going, stay locked in and the work will show eventually. The worst thing you could do is shy away from that next opportunity.”
Friday night’s drama punctuated a curious season for Curry. He carried the Warriors at times in the first two-plus months, dropping 45 points on the Clippers and 50 on the Hawks and 46 on the Grizzlies. He was still Steph Curry, even at age 33.
But he also tossed out several uncommonly ugly shooting nights — 5-for-21 against the Lakers, 4-for-21 against the Suns, 3-for-17 against the Heat.
Put it this way: Curry is shooting 42% from the field this season, nowhere near his career average of 47.3%. He’s making only 38.4% of his shots beyond the 3-point line, also well below his career standard of 42.9%.
Assistant coach Bruce Fraser, who has worked with Curry for nearly eight years, acknowledged what he sees on the court aligns with those subpar statistics.
“Do I need to look at the numbers to know Steph isn’t shooting as well as he can? No. I kind of go by the feel of what exists in the moment,” Fraser said in a Chronicle interview earlier Friday. “Steph has not been quite as good as he has been (in previous years) and could be . ...
“To me, he’s in the prime of his career. Am I worried about Steph getting back to where he’s been? No. He’s human, but just barely.”
Fraser traced Curry’s drop in efficiency to fatigue, falling out of rhythm while chasing Ray Allen’s 3-point record and not having enough time to work on his shot. The Warriors have had a travel-heavy schedule the past month, limiting practice time.
Fraser offered this as an explanation, not an excuse. Curry knocked himself out of rhythm, in some ways, when he launched 3-pointers with abandon for a stretch of games in December, as he neared the record he craved.
“Some of those games, the shots he was taking weren’t maybe as good,” Fraser said.
“I think he was pressing to get the record over with. It did work out sort of magically, to get the record in (New York’s Madison Square) Garden, but it was unnatural up until that point.”
Even before Curry’s gamewinner, Fraser found encouragement in his shooting the previous three games — Jan. 14 against the Bulls, Tuesday night against the Pistons and Thursday night against the Pacers. Klay Thompson’s return has helped, Fraser said, because it forces opponents to become less “Steph-focused.”
Thompson didn’t play Friday night, nor did he play last season when Curry’s shooting numbers — 48.2% from the field, 42.1% beyond the arc — were in line with his career efficiency. But opponents have loaded up more on Curry this season, in Fraser’s mind — picking him up closer to midcourt, often sending three defenders toward him in transition, making him give up the ball before they settle into their halfcourt defense.
Curry avoided offering theories for this season’s declining numbers. He also looks at his shooting numbers, all the damn time.
“I know I’ve got to shoot the ball better, I want to shoot it better and I’m going to shoot it better,” he said after Friday night’s game. “Everything else, I feel pretty good about it in terms of overall impact. I obsess over the shooting numbers because that’s what I do and that’s what I work on. …
“It’s my craft and you want to be great at what you do. Like I said, the work will show up eventually.”
You could argue it showed up in the second half Friday night, when Curry went 5for-12 from the field. Or you could just point to the final play, when Curry took the inbounds pass from Otto Porter Jr., got Kevin Porter on his heels and found the space needed to land the decisive blow.
Curry previously had made seven game-winning shots in the final five seconds, most recently against the Clippers on Dec. 23, 2018. All seven times, the opponent had a chance to respond. Friday night, Rockets players could only trudge to the locker room in dismay.
Kerr called it one of the Warriors’ best wins of the year, given their circumstances. They had lost six of their previous nine games, Draymond Green is sidelined for at least another week and Thursday night’s defeat still stung.
Curry played 44 minutes in that game, so Kerr was nervous keeping him out there in the fourth quarter Friday night. He tried to get him some rest at one point, but Curry insisted he felt fine. He played all but six seconds (one defensive possession) of the fourth quarter.
“I’m fine as long as this one doesn’t go OT,” Curry told Kerr.
Then he made sure it didn’t go OT.
“The worst thing you could do is shy away from that next opportunity.”