Michael Jordan did it with ballet-like grace, floating in the air with twists and turns that seemed to defy physics and that demoralized his victims because no matter what they tried, they could do nothing about it.
As Bruce Lee once said:
Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
That’s how Jordan played. You shift your weight or reach in, he spins. You jump a little early to anticipate the shot, he fades at a little extra angle. You exert your physicality, he absorbs it and contorts accordingly.
Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors is doing it, too. It’s just that instead of everything predicating around the ability to soar in the lane, Curry’s “Arc Reactor” is his deep range, which is actually mathematically more lethal (3 points) than Jordan’s (2 points).
Whether it’s the cross-over, up-fake, fly-by, side-step, or step-back, or any combination of those, Curry’s flow is like water out there beyond the arc. It’s having a devastating effect on NBA defenses.
Last night in the Game 3 blowout of the Houston Rockets, Curry became the only player other than Jordan in Conference Finals history to make five three-pointers, score 40 points, and shoot 55% from field.
The references to Jordan came pouring in, but they actually started earlier this year from former Jordan teammate, Curry’s head coach Steve Kerr.
The Warriors defeated the Milwaukee Bucks on March 4, 2015, in which Curry drained six three-pointers and scored 12 of his 19 points in the 4th quarter, delivering a knockout blow of the Bucks in that final frame.
“I used to watch it with Michael Jordan on nights when he missed ten shots in a row,” Kerr told reporters at the postgame press conference, alluding to Curry’s mere 7 points through three quarters that night. “Everybody else would just clam up. He’d just all of a sudden find it. That incredible confidence is unbreakable and Steph has that. That’s what makes him special.”
Then on April 9, 2015, Curry torched the Portland Trail Blazers for 45 points at Oracle Arena.
The next day at practice, we had the opportunity to ask Kerr if in his career in the NBA he had seen a crowd react to plays like Curry makes.
“Michael Jordan. Saw it with him a couple times, yeah. Those same kinds of oohs and ahhs are generally reserved for the top few players in the league,” said Kerr. “That’s how good Steph is now. He’s one of the top individual attractions in the league.”
“He’s so unique,” Kerr added. “Much like Steve Nash, he’s going to affect the next wave of point guards. Now, good luck — there are very few people in the world who have the hand-eye coordination that Steph Curry has, but he’s affecting a lot of young players and the way they see the point guard position being played.”
The national media is finally catching on throughout these 2015 NBA Playoffs with last night’s performance and, for example, Game 3 against the New Orleans Pelicans.
“You know the Houston Rockets are really in deep trouble in the Western Conference Finals when Stephen Curry is starting to do things on the basketball court that haven’t been done since Michael Jordan,” wrote longtime NBA columnist Mitch Lawrence at Forbes.com. “Yeah, that Michael Jordan.”
“This is how Michael Jordan operated, going on the road and reminding the home team why they have no shot,” wrote Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group, while also drawing references to Kobe Bryant and Larry Bird.
As seen in the highlights of Game 3 against the Rockets, Curry drained a three over Jason Terry on the left side, but got heckled — a four-letter word Curry couldn’t repeat, said Curry in the post-game press conference — by a Houston fan sitting courtside.
Shortly after the trey against Terry, Curry buried another triple as Trevor Ariza lunged by unsuccessfully, in nearly the same spot.
Does that not evoke memories of Jordan’s “Is He Big Enough?” challenge with a Utah Jazz heckler, back on December 2nd, 1987?
The similarities are oozing off the court, as well, because it’s become commonplace to be sitting around at the Warriors practice facility and a Steph Curry commercial suddenly comes on.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @nbaonespn)
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