Steph scores 51, hits 10 3s again, because crazy is the new normal
I guess Orlando Magic head coach and NBA lifer Scott Skiles doesn’t understand the game either. From the opening tip, he had his guards following Oscar Robertson’s advice — “extend your defense out a little bit,” “get up top on” Stephen Curry, pressure him in the backcourt and at half-court — and it didn’t make a lick of difference.
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The NBA’s reigning Most Valuable Player did it again on Thursday, scoring 51 points in 34 minutes to go with eight assists and seven rebounds in leading the Warriors past the Magic, 130-114. On the second night of a back-to-back, 24 hours after hanging 42 on the Miami Heat, Curry went 20-for-27 from the floor, the first time in his career he’s made 20 field goals, and 10-for-15 from 3-point land, while adding eight assists and seven rebounds to improve Golden State to 52-5, keeping the Dubs one game ahead of the Chicago Bulls’ pace during the 1995-96 season in which they set the NBA record for wins in a season by going 72-10. It also marked the Warriors’ 28th road win of the year, matching a franchise record for success away from the Bay with seven weeks still remaining in the season.
He took one free throw, and he scored 51 freaking points. Nobody had ever done that before.
A brief aside: There are those who are getting sick of the degree to which we talk about Curry these days. I would never presume to tell you why you should or shouldn’t like something, but this is why we’re talking about him so much. While there have been a great many excellent basketball players who have produced at phenomenal levels and authored unbelievable moments, Steph is pretty frequently doing things nobody has ever done before, and that nobody had ever even really thought to wonder if anybody had ever done before.
It’s Curry’s third 50-point game of the season and his 10th 40-plus-point outing, both tops in the league this year. He’s the first Warrior with three 50-point games in a campaign since Rick Barry in 1973-74, and the first NBA player period to hit that triple since LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in 2008-09. It’s his fourth career game with at least 10 3-pointers, which is the most in league history; those 10 triples gave him 276 on the season, putting him 10 behind the NBA record for most 3s in a season that he set just last year. Curry now owns the top three 3-point shooting seasons in NBA history, as well as the record for most consecutive games with at least one 3, which he tied on Wednesday and broke on Thursday.
Not content to hang back and allow Curry and fellow All-Star shooting guard Klay Thompson space to operate deep beyond the arc, the Magic began the game playing them tight high on the floor. Steve Kerr’s club responded by having the Splash Brothers back cut against the aggressive defense of Victor Oladipo and Elfrid Payton, and allowing savvy-passing pivot Andrew Bogut to pick out backdoor bounce passes to hit the guards cutting to the the hoop for layups.
Still, the Magic’s forceful defense and athleticism paid dividends early, as Orlando raced out to a seven-point lead, trailed by only three after one, and leading by four at halftime behind balanced scoring from Oladipo, Nikola Vucevic, Evan Fournier and Aaron Gordon. While Curry had gotten off to a hot start, scoring 22 on 9-for-12 shooting by intermission, the rest of the Warriors seemed sluggish, perhaps fatigued after Wednesday’s hardfought battle against Miami and less interested in digging in to defend (as evidenced by Orlando’s 63 first-half points) than in just trying to outscore the upstart Magic.
In the third quarter, Curry very nearly did that by himself, scoring 24 points on 9-for-12 shooting (to 28 on 11-for-21 shooting by Orlando in the frame) and making six of his seven 3-point tries to put Golden State in control, including a buzzer-beating half-court bank-shot at the horn that gave the Warriors a 99-91 lead heading into the fourth:
“Magic coach Scott Skiles told his players before the game that they could have a flawless defensive possession and still see the Warriors come away with points because of the brilliance of Curry and his teammates,” wrote Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. “Skiles said his players could not allow themselves to feel demoralized in those instances.”
It’s hard to blame them, though, for getting demoralized after watching Steph pull up from half-court to turn a two-possession game into a three-possession game with a flick of the wrist. Golden State pressed its advantage in the fourth, as a reserve-led lineup rode a quick eight points from big man Marreese Speights and some flashy playmaking from Andre Iguodala …
… to a 15-point lead with seven minutes left, and the Magic never got within hailing distance again, sending the Warriors on their way to another big win and Curry on the way to another historic night in a season that’s been full of both. This is unbelievable; this is reality; this is the new normal for Golden State and its golden boy, and it doesn’t seem to be in any danger of stopping or slowing down any time soon. You can’t extend your defense forever.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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