Sunday, February 28, 2016

Are You Stephin Kidding Me?

After two wins in Florida on back to back nights, the Warriors flew back across the country to Oklahoma to play the Thunder on Saturday night.  Recall that Steph Curry had a total of 93 points in those two games, and in the last one at Orlando he hit 10 3 pointers.

Besides San Antonio, Oklahoma Thunder are this year's strongest competition in the West.  Their two superstars, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, were hitting on all cylinders for the entire game.  When Westbrook fell on Steph Curry, sending him to the locker room with a possible ankle injury, the game seemed lost.

It wasn't.  Curry returned and helped spark a comeback.  Even though the Thunder were up by 11 with 4 minutes left in the game, the Warriors tied it with no time left, on two foul shots by not their best foul shooter, Andre Iguodala.

They fell behind again in overtime, and again the game seemed lost with 14 seconds, and then with 7 seconds to play.  Then--well, except for all the shots that came before it, all those buzzer beaters from another galaxy far, far away--this would go down in history as The Shot.

But for Steph Curry?  Another night at the office.  A shot from outer space and the game was won.  This season for the Warriors and Steph Curry is transcending the history they are making--this is the stuff of myth.

As emerging Knicks star Kristaps Porzingis tweeted, "Is this real life?"

With that shot, Curry tied the single game record for 3s, with 12.  Something like 40% is considered pretty good for making 3s.  Curry's 12 came on 16 attempts. And those were about half of the 46 points he added to the road trip total. By the end of the game, Curry had broken his own record for 3s in a season and the Warriors clinched a playoff spot--with more than two months left in this season.

Now they're going home, where they are undefeated this year.

Here's the ESPN story with the video.  It's a keeper.

More on Curry from the New York Times.

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