stephen curry 54 (Photo: @warriors Instagram account)
366 days ago, Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors went off at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. [Editor’s note: This happened three months before this site launched.]
The Warriors were without David Lee, who was serving a one-game suspension for being in an altercation with the Indiana Pacers‘s Roy Hibbert. The Dubs lost the game, but that fact remains lost in the mirage of memories from that game, from Curry’s 11-for-13 from beyond the arc to his whatever-you-call-it “shimmy 2.0” and simultaneous dissage of teammate Draymond Green‘s high-five in doing so.
Here's the shot chart from Stephen Curry's 54-point game one year ago today at MSG, where the Warriors play tomorrow pic.twitter.com/EHsDJWC1e6
— GSWStats (@gswstats) February 27, 2014
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The memories are best captured by Grant Hughes of Bleacher Report, James Park of SheridanBlog, and Beckley Mason of the New York Times Off The Dribble report. Read the entire Hughes and Park articles (Hughes has a great recap and two of the best embedded tweets, Park’s has the best tweets from NBA players and former NBA’ers). Here are some snippets from Mason:
Further, no other N.B.A. player has made so many 3s while also adding 7 assists. But what made Curry’s performance so spectacular was that given the personnel available to Coach Mark Jackson, everyone in the arena knew Curry needed a big night for the Warriors to win.
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Knicks Coach Mike Woodson said the plan was to double-team Curry when he entered pick-and-rolls, but his ability to squeeze off long-range shots even when his defender is in decent position repeatedly undid those plans.
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Woodson said trapping Curry “was the plan from the very beginning.” But Woodson also conceded that “it somewhat backfired, he beat all that.”
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Tyson Chandler, who grabbed 28 rebounds against the Warriors’ undersize front line, said, “There is nothing you can do when a guy shoots like that.” Certainly that was the case on a Curry 3 to end the third quarter, when he spun away from a double team and, gathering his balance and initiating his shooting release in one instant, launched a looping 28-foot rainbow through the net.
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But Chandler also acknowledged that the Knicks were overly permissive. “When he comes off a screen-and-roll wide open you can’t do anything,” Chandler said. “When he gets a wide open look in transition you can’t do anything.”
Here are some of the better tweets culled from Park’s four pages of embedded tweets:
Yo @StephenCurry30 [six hand-clap emojis]
— Seth Curry (@sdotcurry) February 28, 2013
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That’s funny how Curry’s brother is tagging him!
From D.Lee:
Proud of my guys for their amazing effort tonight, broke my heart I wasn't out there. @StephenCurry30 you are a bad man! #GSW
— David Lee (@Dlee042) February 28, 2013
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And for all of you lamenting Steph’s eggs from the past three 3-Point Contests:
Steph Curry is the purest shooter in the NBA, 3 point contest be damned. The most watchable and pleasing stroke in today's NBA…
— Brent Barry (@Barryathree) February 28, 2013
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The requisite highlight reel:
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