As the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets sat with an attached score with a little more than five seconds left Friday night, Steve Kerr had an unmistakable play as a primary concern for their final offensive possession: “Get the ball to Steph and get out of the way.”
They executed it perfectly, as Stephen Curry emptied the triumphant shot out of 2 feet inside the 3-point arc as the buzzer went off. It was the first walk-off bucket of Curry’s professional career.
The festival followed as Golden State beat Houston 105-103. Various individuals within the Warriors association called the moment a release of emotions that had developed throughout 24 hours following a baffling misfortune to the shorthanded Indiana Pacers.
In any case, notwithstanding the great moment, the team wasn’t uninformed to the way that it actually has a ton of work to do – – Curry included. In spite of his heroics, he said he realizes he has quite far to go individually.
“I know I got to shoot the ball better,” Curry said. “I want to shoot it better, and I’m gonna shoot it better. … I obsess over the shooting numbers because that’s what I do and that’s what I work on. When you don’t reach those levels, it’s frustrating.”
Curry began the night 0-for-11 from the field prior to hitting a 3-point shot with just shy of two minutes left in the first half. He completed the night with 22 points on 6-of-21 shooting, including 4-of-13 from 3-point range.
His performance Friday night was an expansion of the most exceedingly awful shooting slump in his career.
Curry is shooting 42% from the field, poised to be the most minimal in a season in his career. Since Christmas Day, he is shooting 37% from the field and has scored 30 or more points in only one of his previous 11 games. Before Christmas, he was shooting 44% from the field, including 4-of-13 from 3-point range.
Curry said he focuses on these numbers. He pursues his shooting trends and knows precisely where his numbers are dipping.
“It’s the standard I hold myself to,” Curry said. “I know I can do it and sustain it. That’s the challenge, I guess, is to be aware of it, continue to be aggressive. Understand there is a lot of season left and it’s about peaking at the right time. But I do obsess over that stuff because it’s your craft.”
Curry said he doesn’t have a reasonable clarification regarding the reason why he is shooting ineffectively. There is a conviction that the impetus for his droop traces all the way back to early December, when Curry was pursuing Ray Allen’s unequaled 3-point record. Yet, it’s just as simple as that, to Curry. What precisely it is, however, is more subtle than whatever else.
“I’m just missing shots,” Curry said. “There’s no reason, other than you just miss shots.”
Yet, that won’t hold him back from throwing them up.
“That’s the deepest level of confidence that a player can have,” Kerr said. “Turning 0-for-10 or whatever into a night where he hits the game-winning shot … he lives by the motto ‘the next one is going in.’ He genuinely believes it.”
Said Curry: “There’s a reason I joked about it before, but the reason I can go 0-for-11 for one game and come back the next game and have a breakout kind of performance is because the work will show eventually.
“I obsess over it, but I don’t panic. If I did, I wouldn’t be shooting as much as I am.”
