Sights & Sounds, Recap From #SFProam: Stephen Curry Summer League Highlights From All Angles (Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @HoopMixTape)
KEZAR PAVILION, SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Here’s a recap and, more importantly, a bevy of Stephen Curry highlights from all angles of last night’s game at the San Francisco Pro-Am Summer League. Curry scored 43 points including 9 three-pointers, leading team SF City “Gold Rush” to a comeback win over Bay Pride, 110-104.
Things looked promising from the opening tipoff as Curry got a defensive rebound off the first shot of the game from Bay Pride, dribbled past halfcourt, and passed to an open teammate in the corner, who drilled a three.
Moments later, he found himself wide open on the left elbow, although he had to yell, “Woooooh!!” to receive the ball. However, Curry missed the shot, a long two-pointer.
Not long after that, he got scored on via jumper, then immediately answered that small defeat by taking and missing another long two-pointer. You wondered if, maybe, Curry hadn’t yet adjust to the various three-point lines on Kezar’s court, which has the high school, NCAA, and NBA lines painted.
Curry isn’t one to settle for jumpers, however, and he took opportunities to drive to the hole. On a subsequent play, he attacked right baseline, only to get his jersey pulled. An artistic high-arcing finger roll rimmed out, and no foul was called.
Shortly thereafter, as Bay Pride crossed halfcourt, Curry feigned retreating backcourt, anticipated a pass from right-to-left, and stole the ball with a lot of real estate open in front of him. Leading the ensuing 3-on-1 fastbreak, Curry pulled up from three-point-land, but missed the straightway three.
After another missed three, Bay Pride came down and scored a running jumper over Curry. SF City called timeout with Bay Pride leading 16-6 early on.
Curry would proceed to miss his first seven attempts from the field. However, all of the shots were in rhythm and either went in and out or rimmed hard off the back-iron. The absence of misses short off the front rim might indicate how excited he was to play in front of a Kezar Pavilion that was filled to the back rows. Based on a maximum capacity of 4,000, you’d figure at least 3,000 were there to see if the #HumanTorch would light it up.
If there were any signs of frustration on Curry’s part, they were from the mishandles of his passes or the generally sloppy play of the opening quarter, including perhaps a couple of missed calls by the refs. We’ll throw those in the “oh-my-goodness-am-I-really-on-the-floor-with-Steph” excuses bin.
The anxious crowd would have to wait until 0:51 remaining in the first quarter, when Curry finally hit the shot that beatwriter-turned-cameraman Marcus Thompson of Bay Area News Group captured:
You can see that there were two defenders draped over him. Manny Martin of Bay Pride actually played perfect defense on Curry’s shot, even touching Curry’s hand upon the release — to no avail.
Yet it was a double-digit deficit for Curry’s SF City team, at the end of the first quarter.
Bay Pride coach and former Pro-Am MVP Richard Morton had the game plan all set and, up until that point, it was working to perfection: double- or even sometimes triple-team Curry after he crosses halfcourt and let the other SF City players beat you.
Unfortunately, “to no avail” would be a recurring theme for Morton.
A signature Curry move, meeting a defender at the top and letting the “showing” big man muddy up the defensive picture as Curry’s teammate dropped to the key, making a shifty move to present the big as an obstacle to his own man defending Curry, going between-the-legs from right-to-left, then crossing that back over behind-the-back from left-to-right, and pulling up for the three, all in one motion, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Here was the play from two courtside angles:
Here’s a slow-motion version of the play:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lmSMeTDfqc&w=560&h=315]You can see Curry trotting back on defense and taking a few two-footed hops like a boxer who landed his first big punch.
Here’s Curry with a step-back (#stephback?)…
It was all downhill from there in terms of individual performance, but his team continued to make mistakes which elongated the comeback.
Despite the textbook high-off-the-backboard layup (with the left hand, and-one!)…
…to go along with a couple more treys, there was an inbound by an SF City teammate that got stolen by Bay Pride and led to an easy layup.
There was also a fruitless late help of a teammate who had gotten burned on the left side, and in the blink of an eye the Bay Pride big man was above the rim while Curry was under it, yet the dunk was not a clean one, which enabled Curry’s fans to stomach the embarrassment. So yeah, technically, he “got dunked on”.
But true to form, Curry marched on.
A fastbreak delivery with the left hand, behind-the-back, no problem. A catch-n-shoot corner trey, swish. A fourteen-point lead that Morton schemed whittled down to seven, which whittled down three, 45-42, at halftime.
By then, a tally of the ancient green-hued scorebook showed Curry had collected 18 points, four of which were three-pointers, to go along with a missed free throw on that gorgeous lefty layup he got fouled on.
Guesstimating about nine missed shots, Curry’s halftime stats were approximately 8-for-17 field, 4-for-9 beyond the arc, and 0-for-1 from the line, with probably a couple of assists and turnovers, a few rebounds and steals.
In the second half, it was all Curry, starting with a breakaway dunk and an and-one trey.
And a great baseline shot of that dunk:
There was the three-point delivery and premature celebration by John Tofi:
How about a shoulder fake, pivot, and the bottom of the net from twenty feet away?
Highlights of the above:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwxykXfM4IE&w=560&h=315]The 45-42 halftime deficit soon became a 56-49 lead in just four minutes. With 2:50 to go, the SF City lead grew to 72-58, representing a 30-11 run, at least 15 of which were scored consecutively by Curry.
Save for maybe a couple turnovers, one of which led to an Arron Mollett uncontested breakaway dunk for Bay Pride, the rest of the game went flawlessly for Curry.
That includes his ever-growing-in-frequency missed open layup, followed by an offensive rebound by a teammate, followed by sneaking into the corner, followed by a catch-and-shoot three-ball “splash”.
Haven’t we seen that one or twice before while in a Warriors uniform?
With 2:19 to go, Curry finally checked out of the game, with SF City leading 105-90. The fact that the final score would end up 110-104 is a testament to the stamp Curry had put on the game.
Aside from the standard made baskets and free throws, the league doesn’t keep track of full stats anymore, so here’s our best guess at Curry’s final shooting tallies:
43 points on 16-for-28 from the floor, 9-for-18 on three-pointers, and 2-for-4 on free throws.
We leave you with the highlights:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJhMWvXGnU4&w=560&h=315] [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laJ-OlrIINM&w=560&h=315][NOTE: Damian Lillard apparently will NOT be making an appearance at #SFProAm tonight]
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