So it seems that Stephen Curry is still a legendary basketball player. After Curry started to freeze to the standard of the season when the Warriors pushed their way to the worst offensive onslaught in the league, Curry found his stock of old fireworks and all started on Sunday at the same time. on becomes the second oldest player to pick up at least 60 points in history – just behind Kobe Bryant, who at age 60 hung on to the Jazz in his final career game.
What’s more, Curry did it in just 36 minutes and rejoined Kobe as the only players in history to score at least 62 points in 36 minutes or less. Kobe did this in December 2005 when he dropped 62 on the Mavericks in just 33 minutes.
By the way, Golden State defeated the Blazers Sunday, 137-122, to improve its record to 3-3. But no one cares. It was Curry’s night. Another in an in-depth career full of theatrical explosions. If you’ve just here for the highlights, then this is it.
Normally, a Curry performance would not require much more analysis than appreciating the grandeur. It’s a kind of old hat now. By his standards, he honestly wasn’t even that hot – ‘only’ 8 out of 16 out of three.
But in this case, there were and are some key layers in Curry’s night that could define the rest of Golden State’s season. First, he took 31 strokes. It may sound like a number that is only justifiable when you roll, but Curry has to be so aggressive every night. Whether it’s 30 shots when the defense rolls on the pick-or-roll or plays him in a straight way, or 20 shots when two and three guys catch him where he turns, he has to attack to score for this team limited offensive weapons, and even more limited collective shooting, to compete.
As a by-product of Curry’s aggression Sunday, he reached a 19-time career high of 19 times and sank 18. Give Steve Kerr credit: he makes the early season adaptation of the intricate, ball-and-player movement-based system he ran with an amazing team of all time toward a simpler strategy. For lack of a better explanation, the strategy is to give Curry the ball.
The Warriors did it Sunday by performing more Curry-led pick-and-roll and putting their best player in position to attack with the ball in his hands rather than putting so much emphasis on his movement off the ball farm. “We want to do it all the time,” Kerr said as he got Curry in the position to attack downhill. This is a departure from Kerr’s traditional ethos. This is what is needed.
The Warriors no longer have multiple point threats that could water down the defensive attention Curry receives from the ball. He gets it all now. Defense is going to turn everything off the ball and prevent actions that Curry escaped earlier. Nor do they have the passers-by they had.
There is never any talk of that part, but Andre Iguodala, Kevin Durant, Shaun Livingston, these guys had an almost telepathic relationship with Curry, fully focused on his seemingly erratic movement and relocations in a second. You do not have much time to deliver perfect passes if the defense finds Curry like a refugee with three strikes. Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre are not going to make on-the-fly reading like that. That’s not what they’re doing. It helps tremendously to have Draymond Green back, but even for his passing skill, he is not a threat to score himself. Curry has to carry a big playmaking burden again.
Curry also has some responsibility to not play like that every night up to this point. His shot has not fallen, and in part this can be attributed to a somewhat passive approach, or at least an approach that the system has to show early on. It was more like: I’m the best player on the floor, and a bad chance for me is usually a better option than a good chance for someone else on my team.
No, he’s not going to score 62 points every night. But in terms of attacking all night, chasing his lap and letting it fly or dropping the secondary offense from the attention he draws, it’s all on him. He knows it. I feel silly to ask if Curry was still the kind of player who could consistently create shots like he did Sunday night, or if he could sink another night into his pre-Durant pocket magic.
He clearly still has that kind of game at age 32, but it was indeed one game. And the Blazers are not exactly the Bad Boys. A man like Curry who sees Enes Kanter fall on the pick-and-roll cover is like a shark smelling decayed bodies. Let’s see if Curry can or wants to continue this approach all season. Because that’s what the Warriors need to compete for a playoff spot. Sunday night was a fun reminder that Stephen Curry is still Stephen Curry, but it will be much nicer if he stays in that mode for the long term.