Stephen Curry has enjoyed many legendary shooting performances during his long NBA career, but even he was astonished by what he was able to accomplish Thursday night, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. Curry sank all eight of his three-point attempts while posting 30 points, 10 assists and six rebounds to lead the Warriors in a blowout of Philadelphia. It’s the most three-pointers he’s ever had in a game without a miss and it’s one short of the NBA record, according to Youngmisuk.
“He deserves these nights,” coach Steve Kerr said. “Everything he does for us and endures. It’s so fun to see him do this. And our fans and our coaches, we’re all spoiled watching him play night after night. But we need to cherish these nights. He’s not going to be around forever, and he is one of the most beautiful basketball players who’s ever lived and we’re lucky to be watching him.”
Curry’s historic night came despite a sprained right thumb that originally had him listed as questionable to play. He was able to practice on Wednesday, but he did almost everything left-handed to protect the thumb from further injury. It was also the first game since he referred to the team’s play as “mid” after Monday’s loss to Cleveland.
“I know what I said last game and I meant it,” Curry said. “Because you are what your record says you are, and we have been playing below average basketball for a long time. Obviously I take accountability for a lot of that and at the end of the day you just want to play free and have fun. I celebrated my first three and just to try to infuse some joy into the game, so we have to try to maintain that even if shots don’t fall for a certain stretch of a game, just stay locked in.”
There’s more on the Warriors:
- Jonathan Kuminga continued his improved play with 20 points, five rebounds and five assists while shooting 8-of-11 from the field, per Sam Gordon of The San Francisco Chronicle. Kuminga is still being used in a reserve role, but he’s seeing consistent minutes as Kerr has trimmed the rotation to nine players. “You can just tell he’s getting comfortable,” Draymond Green said. “He knows now ‘Oh, I’m going to get the ball. I’m going to have my opportunities to score, so now I just don’t to have to show you that I can score’ … With that, it’s building a sense of purpose for him. … It’s just raised his comfort level.”
- Kerr credits veteran center Kevon Looney and offseason addition Kyle Anderson for being willing to accept reduced roles to make the new rotation successful. (Twitter link from Anthony Slater of The Athletic). “We’re so lucky to have those guys on the team. They’re the most professional guys you could ask for as a coach,” Kerr said. “They’re the odd men out right now. The only way it works in the NBA is if the guys who are not playing are supportive of the other guys and aware of what’s happening and accepting of it without being happy about it.”
- Dennis Schröder shot just 7-of-34 from three-point range during his first seven games after being acquired from Brooklyn, but he snapped out of his slump Thursday by going 3-of-4 from beyond the arc and scoring 15 points. After the game, he talked to reporters about the adjustments he’s had to make to fit into Kerr’s offense (Twitter link from Slater).
Please no Butler to warriors trade proposals they can’t take on a $48 million contract and Miami wouldn’t want they w need to offer to make it work.
Add in all the losses that will result from integrating Butler into the lineup. Not really worth it.
Giants74, right, and we know that he’s not the easiest guy to get along with.
He’s like Kobe Bryant, but in a bad way. A hard ass in the locker room and on the floor.., wants things his way and everything’s intense.
But people were endeared to Kobe because of it, whereas Butler does it wrong and he’s on his 4th, 5th team.
Jimmy Butler is done. And by that I mean, he can’t guarantee that he’ll be on the floor. The guy gets nicked up too much at this stage and for that money. Hard no.
Plus, how you gonna send out $48 million? That’s Wiggins plus Looney plus Gary Payton Plus Miami wants more than the Warriors bench pieces.
Assuming Fox is a pipe dream, my fantasy trade deadline happenings for Dubs has been VUCEVIC for a while and, more recently, LaVert, Wade and Jerome; send-outs: Looney, GP2, Waters III and a 1st or 2nd pick in the first trade; then Wiggins, Podz and maybe a 2nd in the follow-up deal.
Imagine the possibilities of that, you guys.
Cavs are not going to make any trades since they are rolling with what they have and the best team in the east. Wizards want a 1st rounder for Vucevic and that not worth it.
The Warriors like to run. Vucevic is slow.
The Bulls are playing the 2nd fastest pace in the league this season, much faster than the Warriors (9th), and Vuc has been thriving. He’s not agile, but he’s a good transition player.
@ChosenDud Thats the biggest Dub Nation pipe dream trade I have ever seen on here, no shot in any way does Cleveland make trades while they have a virtually unbeatable roster. Did GSW make trades in 73-9?
I do however support GSW trading all the names you mentioned though, but just not for that package, simply because it makes zero sense from the Cavs perspective.
Also is anyone going to bring up how Fox’s last year of his deal is next year, and he makes less than $39M? Meaning he could be traded 1-1 for Moody once Moody’s deal starts? Sabonis and Hartenstein are two others Moody could be swapped 1-1 for. Im not trying to trade Moody but if those 3 are available and its a 1-1 deal Im pretty sure GSW’s front office will pull that trigger.
Trading Wiggins would destroy any of the warriors dim chances, unless it is for someone like KD
@arc89 agreed, Butler at that money just makes no sense at all on GSW. Vucevic is the guy we need who we actually can get without gutting the main roster. We have always needed one more big and he is him, plus he can start and mentor TJD along the way. It’s such a good idea, if all it costs are Looney, Lindy and GP2 and picks.
It’s what I want, arc89 and Davey J. I understand you can’t always get what you want….no you CAN’T always get..wuh-chue waaaant…..that is, unless maybe you’re William “Freaking” Gates!
P.S. – Our boy, Luke Adams, suggested yesterday the Cavs could use another wing.
PG-Garland
SG-Mitchell
SF-WIGGINS
PF-Mobley
C-Allen
Not gonna lie: that’s about the scariest looking starting 5 since, what……….the 2018-19 Golden State Warriors?? Atkinson KNOWS Wiggy and Podz, Davey J!! Don’t forget that!
ChosenDud- Vegas currently has odds of Cavs winning Chip lower than Celtics, OKC, and, even, Denver & Knicks. Consider:
– These same playera have a record for failure, losing in 1st round the last 2 years. (Warriors had won 3 Chips.)
– Cavs have no top 10 players. Mitchell may be top 15. (Warriors had two top 5 players in Steph and KD, plus perennial All-stars Klay, Draymond, and Iggy.)
To date, the Cavs have had an extraordinarily easy schedule. They’re a very good team, but with a lot to prove.
Stop the presses. End the season right now. Vegas has spoken. We have our 4 team playoffs; Knicks, Celtics, Thunder and Nuggets…You do realize the odds are focused on getting people to spend money and not necessarily an accurate outcome.
Giants74 said:
> You do realize the odds are focused on getting people to spend
> money and not necessarily an accurate outcome?
That’s distincly inaccurate. You are as much of an expert in financial markets and betting as you are about basketball. This is your chance to learn something and stop embarassing yourself with statements that many on this board recognize as ignorant.
1. Vegas odds are proven to be the most predictive of any publicly available indicator for sports outcome. They represent expected outcome based on human experts and computing models. These odds are updated in near real-time on the basis of changing info.
2. Any bookmakers that don’t set odds based on the expected, to use your words, “accurate outcome”, would suffer losses.
Yes, a bookmaker may vary an initial price on a very small scale to attract action, but on the whole, the pricing of futures across bookmakers varies very little. Go to any betting site providing futures on the projected W-L record for the Warriors, and you’ll find they vary by no more than 2-3 games.
42 assists on just 11 turnovers. That’s how they should play. What new complaint about Kerr are people going to come up with?
“Why didn’t he do this sort of thing sooner?” as though he’s playing 2K and not managing fifteen titanic egos.
(You have to be kinda crazy and egotistical to be a professional athlete, tbh)
EonADS, dont’t you think the queation should be “why didn’t he stick with the scheme that was so successful in the 2nd half of last year?”
Are you suggesting that an NBA coach should worry about pleasing his 9-15 guys at the expense of winning? As of 5 days ago, Kerr says he feels the opposite.
10 assist by Curry because he was being double teamed and throwing to the open shooter. the open shooter making their baskets. That is what i took from this game. Curry wasn’t trying to force shots from double teams. Now only if they can get Buddy hitting 3s again they will be fine.
Remember a couple of weeks back when Kerr called out Kuminga for not passing the ball more. Everyone’s panties were all in flames. Look at Draymond’s quote after this game. JK looked comfortable on the floor. He wasn’t forcing shots. He was also looking for the open man. And look, they have one of their biggest wins of the season.
I just wish Kerr left Buddy in the last 7 minutes of the game+ so maybe he could find his shot again. He looked lost on the bench last night at the end of the game. its all in his head. Sometimes you need a player to keep shooting to find his rhythm again.
Giant you weren’t listening. Kerr didn’t call out Kuminga for not passing the ball more. Kerr called him out for not making the right passes.
Kerr said Kuminga made a big mistake for taking a mid-range early in the clock when Stephen Curry was wide open. But Kerr also said that Kuminga passes the ball when he should attack. It’s not about passing more it’s about making the right pass. Big difference.
You completely missed my point. Kerr’s calling Kuminga out wasn’t a coaching failure as people where whining about. Kuminga’s play has improved. That’s a coaching success.
Giant,.
Good coaches don’t call out players in public. Especially not young players. If that worked coaches would do it all the time. They don’t. Coaching happens in practices and in person. If a coach embarrasses players in public that’s a failure on the coach.
Everybody saw that when Kerr called out Kumingw and Podz after the bad Denver loss that Kerr was very angry and emotional. That makes criticizing Podz and Kuminga even worse. Especially because his stars played terrible and Kerr never talked about them.
Kerr can’t communicate with young players. That’s why they all leave. Kerr cares about his vets only.
“Phily is an awful team, let’s see them doing this against real competition in the West”.
> What new complaint about Kerr are people going to
> come up with?
The complaint is that it took almost half the season to return to what he was doing in the 2nd half of last year, costing us 6-8 wins, so that we now may miss the playoffs. Simple enough for you?
The 2023-24 formula that Kerr must now stick with:
– 9-10 man rotation
– starter mins to Kuminga, TJD, Wiggins, Steph
– heavy mins to ballhandler #2 Schroder (Chris Paul)
– heavy mins to outside shooter Hield (Klat Thompson)
– use rest of bench situationally
The updated models for setting over-unders indicate that using the above lineup from the start of this 2024-25 season projects would have yielded 51-31 season, and a 5th place finish. But, because Kerr burned wins with his 12-man rotation fetish, we’re now projected to win 45 games, about 10th to 11th place.
In 2023-24, Kerr shifted to the above rotation in late January, moving Kuminga and TJD in, and reducing Klay, Looney, and GP2. We were 5 games under .500. Result of the move: we had the 2nd best record in the league in the second half (after the Celtics), but still missed the playoffs because of our poor 1st half.
By the way, this is not a novel analysis of Kerr’s performance. You’ll see it all over the NBA analytics world. Steve Kerr, just by virtue of giving minutes to his bad players at the expense of his better players, has been by far the worst coach in the NBA since the start of 2023-24. Some other coaches have been worse at times (Darvin Ham, Adrian Griffin, Monte Williams), but no coach matches Kerr’s distinction for losing close games by playing try the lesser of available players. Lndy Waters is this season’s poster child.
Both Looney and slow Mo know they’ll be valuable in the playoffs. They will definitely play a lot as the game slows down and you need veterans to guard the paint area.
They know their time is coming. Right now it’s run and gun and shooting threes but that slows way down in the postseason.
Playoffs?
You know what you’re right. That’s not a given anymore. I still have my “Warriors are great” hat on. I forgot this year is crumbling before our very eyes. Good call.
Gary, agree 100%, but that’s IF we make the playoffs. We’re in 10th place right now, Vegas gives us small odds of getting past the play-in.
Kerr seems to have finished with the failed experimenting, so we should play over .500 in the remaining games. But we’ve probably lost our shot at a 5th or 6th place finish we should have had.
Was a really nice game for GSW and Steph to have to build confidence, but like the Suns game, the 76ers were not at full strength and Embiid looks so cooked, like he needed help up every time he fell and was seen leaning on other players on both teams in between plays. His knees are gone. Curry will play longer in this league than Embiid, mark my words.
Podz and GP2 not being available is a big reason why we won last night. Moody is better than both of them combined and now Dennis is here to play PG, there’s no reason to keep blocking Moses with lesser talents, Kerr is still playing Lindy Waters too much when he is not a main piece, as shown last night LW3 was the only guy with a minus score. Moody on the other hand, scored 12 points in 15 mins with a +13, Moody should be starting at SG. Dennis, Dray and Steph still arent gelling together, only 2 of those guys should be on court at all times except garbage time. Moody’s defense and best of all SCORING, is much-needed yet Kerr the idiot despises Moody and refuses to play him.
Not sure there’s too much we can take away from this other than the 76ers are in no way an elite team. GSW has to string wins together to be taken seriously again, which, yknow, they might actually do…
Warriors are a loss away from that famous “We’re going to win 65 games this year” proclamation by someone in here.
Pray tell who made that proclamation
Sounds like something Sillivan would say. Coupled with an insane trade proposal.
Oh Davey J’s brother/cousin. The cancers of hoopsrumors