Stephen Curry can’t stop making half-court buzzer-beaters
It has become reasonable to expect the otherwise unreasonable when it comes to Stephen Curry. To give just one example, the Golden State Warriors superstar and near-certain back-to-back MVP is making halfcourt shots with unheard-of regularity, to the point where coaches can sensibly instruct their players to start picking him up 60 feet from the basket. As ever, Curry has reconfigured the way basketball is played.
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His latest 50-footer proves that he has also reconfigured what constitutes an amazing shot. With time winding down in the first half of Wednesday’s game against the Utah Jazz at Oracle Arena, Curry picked the ball up and … well, you can probably guess what he did:
The official play-by-play puts this bucket at 55 feet, which would probably seem more impressive if it didn’t look so natural coming out of his hand and going through the hoop. Curry has now made these types of shots so often that it’s easier to marvel at our own lack of shock than the three-pointer itself.
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However, this bucket stands out from others for several reasons. For one thing, there’s the sprint into the tunnel, which calls to mind another famous highlight from a must-watch athlete:
Here’s video of that legendary Bo Jackson touchdown, in case you’re unfamiliar. Maybe we’ll talk about this Steph shot in the same way 20-plus years from now.
Those more focused on the immediate relevance of the basket should note that it essentially ended the Jazz’s chance of ending the Warriors’ record home winning streak. Golden State followed a Trey Burke lay-up with 1:13 remaining in the second-quarter by finishing the half on a 9-0 run to open up a 52-41 advantage. The Warriors never trailed by fewer than nine points again and opened up an 18-point lead heading into the fourth quarter to create extended garbage time. An eventual 115-94 win lifted the Warriors’ record to 57-6, which still feels like a misprint.
Perhaps the craziest thing about Curry’s halfcourt shot is that it made him the center of attention in a victory that was really more about a full-team effort. Curry finished with just 12 points (4-of-12 FG) for his second-lowest scoring output of the season. Yet that was in many ways a good sign for a Golden State club that had been especially reliant on Curry and Klay Thompson of late. Thompson poured in a game-high 23 points on 9-of-14 FG, but the real story was that everyone but Curry and Harrison Barnes made more than half his attempts as the Warriors shot 57.1 percent from the field. Meanwhile, the defense limited the Jazz to 40.5 percent shooting, including a 5-of-15 night for Gordon Hayward.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
