Houston beats Golden State again, but did Stephen Curry silence his critics?
So in case you hadn’t heard, Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry had a particularly tough game against the Houston Rockets on national TV Saturday.
He made 7-of-23 shots, including just 2-of-9 3-point attempts. Curry scored 17 points and blew about as many layups as you would if you tried to make them against Houston’s defense.
The exclamation point on a less-than-memorable night came when Curry spectacularly missed a dunk at the end of game.
He became a 6-foot-3 meme.
People were saying on television and tweeting on their phones that Curry was overrated and brought up discussion (again) that the former Davidson star was being given too much rope because he was cuddly, cute and fun.
Well, did you forget he is a two-time NBA MVP (one unanimously) or did you forget about his playoff averages? They are a nothing-to-make-a-meme-about 26 points, six assists, five rebounds per game.
Compare that with, say, Kobe Bryant, and maybe you will want to go find that dunk meme and delete it.
Kobe’s playoffs averages were 25.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, 4.7 assists.
So if Steph is trash and his numbers are equal to Kobe’s....well you get the point.
Curry is also playing with a pretty knarled up dislocated finger on his left hand.
And in Monday night’s Game 4, Curry had a chance to answer his critics in his 100th career playoff game. Houston won 112-108, but Curry looked a whole lot like the guy that has been terrorizing the NBA the past few years.
He started with 11 points and four assists in the first quarter and never stopped. Curry’s 3-point shot still wasn’t there -- he was 4-of-14 from deep -- but he definitely impacted the game, including making a clutch 3 with under 20 seconds left that trimmed the Houston lead to two. Though he missed a potential game-tying 3 in the waning seconds, Curry went for 30 points, eight assists and four rebounds.
Of course, everyone wasn’t satisfied.
This story was originally published May 7, 2019 at 12:07 AM.