Curry's historic 51 point performance proves that he's gunning for his third MVP award
A little over four years ago, Bradley Beal, starting shooting guard for the Wizards, said of his budding partnership with John Wall:
This was in September 2014, and this thought perforated throughout the league. This was before Klay’s 37 in the 3rd, before Steph’s 402-three, unanimous MVP season, his 37-footer against the Thunder, Klay’s 60 in three quarters or his 41-point game 6 against the Thunder. Before four record-breaking, league-changing years, before three championships, before the Warriors became the Evil Empire, before this all-time backcourt truly became a symbol of the new identity of the NBA.
Tonight, if any night, showed just how wrong Beal was just four short years ago.
In what will be remembered as one of his all-time performances, the allegedly declining two-time MVP scored 51 points in 32 minutes, knocking in 11/16 three-pointers and 15/24 from the field, along with 10/10 from the line, championing the Warriors (4-1) to a 144-122 win over the Wizards (1-3) and turning a random Wednesday night game into a spectacle.
In the process, Curry jumped in 5th place all-time in made three-pointers with 2162.
After the game, Beal said he had an idea of how to stop the proclaimed greatest shooter of all-time.
Four years later, what does Beal say now?
"Probably foul the s--- out of him, that's probably what we should have done," Beal said. "And even when we did that, he was still making them. So I don't know."
It started late in the 1st quarter.
At the 4:22 mark, with five points so far, Curry darted up the court on transition, rapidly slowing up for a 29-footer at the left elbow, taking some contact along the way.
Over the next three-and-a-half minutes, Curry scored 18 straight, bludgeoning the Wizards with 30-footer after 30-footer.
In an almost laughably similar stretch in the third, Steph scored 17 points in a row in a span of three minutes and 14 seconds, teeing off from Oakland City Center and bottoming out the net, each shot more ludicrous than the last, all of us counting along.
Ironically, this ruthless run, which put the Warriors up by 18 heading in the 4th, killed any chance he had to challenge his previous career high of 54 points.
"You get a guy taking 40-footers and you're on the sidelines going, 'Yeah, that's a good shot. Good job,'" Steve Kerr said after the game. “Explain that. We’ve never seen this before.”
The Wizards’ backcourt running mates combined for 36 points and 10 assists on 15-27 shooting, although Beal played on 19 minutes after being knocked in the chest in the first quarter.
Curry said after the game that he felt good early on, as we saw before the game, when he banked in a towering lefty fingeroll off the bounce.
"Everything felt in rhythm," Curry said after the game. "You start to get good looks, you don't have to force anything to find them and you can just repeat that same motion and it's going in… In front of Oracle Arena and our fans here, Dubnation, it’s always special. On a night like tonight when everything is cooking, I just wanna embrace it.”
Curry has been in rhythm all year, notching at least 30 in every game but the 123-103 win over Phoenix – where he scored 29 – and shooting a scorching 55 percent from the field.
When asked after the game if it’s important for him to be in the MVP conversation Curry responded in his usual calm tone but was very clear.
“I mean if you think about guys that have won three it would definitely be special, it’s something that I never though I would have the opportunity to go after but it’s more so just on a nightly basis staying within myself and doing what I need to do and again those conversations will happen just like they did the first two times and I wanna give people a reason to notice for sure…”
Klay Thompson, who has been as cold as his beard is scruffy, hit eight of his 17 attempts for 19 points; and in a quietly dominant performance, Kevin Durant notched a plus-minus of +26 with 30 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists.