I've gotta give the entity that created unstoppable basketball machine Stephen Curry some credit. For about three weeks there, up until the fourth quarter of Monday night's Warriors-Blazers instant classic, I thought Steph Curry might be human.
Curry suffered an ankle injury against the Rockets, then came back and suffered another knee injury. It took him almost three weeks to recover from that knee injury, which pushed back his return date a couple of times. And when he finally took the court against Portland in Game 4 on Monday, he looked off. While Curry's nimble passing, finishing ability, and quick defensive hands were present, his shot was seemingly gone.
The player coming off the greatest shooting season in NBA history missed his first nine three-point attempts. Nine! By his season average, he should've hit about four. Instead, he missed all nine, and Blazers-Warriors was en route to overtime instead of a double-digit Golden State victory in regulation.
Curry was doing human things. Humans have flawed, injury-prone limbs. A human unable to play basketball for a few weeks might lose some of the muscle memory required to throw a basketball through a hoop. A human's performance might spontaneously wane. A human might experience self-doubt.
Then, Curry flipped the switch. (Humans do not have switches.)
Curry played what is quite possibly the best overtime anybody has ever played in an NBA game. He had 17 points, the most any player has ever scored in an NBA overtime, regular season or postseason. Sixty-plus years of games ending in ties, and nobody has ever scored 17 points in the additional five minutes. That makes sense! Seventeen points is so many to score in five minutes!
Some of it was his trademark -- he hit three threes, all deep, all unassisted. Sometimes there were hands in his face. Sometimes he was wide open. Sometimes he dribbled into space and pulled up. Sometimes he needed to create the space himself with a dizzying array of direction-changing dribbles. Didn't matter. No extenuating factor fazed him. His overtime shots were perfect, some not even rustling the rim. If Steph Curry were human, he would not be able to lock in like this. But he did it three times in three tries, right when his team needed him.
But it wasn't just Steph Curry doing Steph Curry things: he also grabbed an offensive board, scored and flexed.
If Steph Curry were human, his game would have weaknesses. Does he? He's the undisputed best shooter of all time, an immaculate ball-handler whose pregame dribbling routine is as famous as his pregame shooting routine. He's an exquisite, creative passer, an effective, inventive finisher around the basket, a nimble defender who leads the NBA in steals, a basketball savant who passes to players before they even realize they're open, and he's pretty fast, too. If you think I'm overselling Curry ... which of these things is wrong? And on top of all that, here he is recording a putback bucket with the game on the line in the playoffs.
Sure, Curry looked rusty at first. But metal-based things are supposed to accumulate rust. He knocked it off, and then he was mechanically perfect again.
The only hitch is Steph's emotion. Steph looked into the camera and yelled "I'M BACK" after a big overtime three.
Could a cyborg do that? Could a cyborg have that swagger? Could a cyborg comprehend its own storyline -- going away, coming back more unstoppable than ever -- and put that into words at exactly the right time?
Oh, yeah, that's literally what the most famous cyborg in cyborg history did:
Steph Curry's a terminator, and Monday night he terminated the Blazers. He may be disguised as a puny human being. Do not believe his exterior. He is equipped with the best guns, and he's the world's greatest sharpshooter. But he's also impenetrable to bullets and can beat you senseless in a fistfight. Do not engage him like you engage pathetic, fallible humans. You will die. You need to come up with something greater and more creative to kill him.
On Tuesday, the NBA's MVP will be announced. Curry will win, we already know that. But the question is whether the voting will be unanimous. It's possible some NBA pundit will argue Curry can't be "most valuable" because he's on one of the best teams ever constructed, a deep super-squad stocked with other great shooters and incredible defenders. Their argument received some support when a Curry-less Golden State squad rolled to a series win over Houston and a 2-0 start against Portland. How can Curry be "most valuable" if his team crushes opponents without him?
Monday night is why. Golden State was faced with a talented Portland team clicking on all cylinders, with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum playing their finest, answering every call. The Warriors were without two important cogs in Andrew Bogut and Shaun Livingston, both ejected.
So, Curry played flawless basketball until victory was unavoidable. Perhaps Golden State could've won without Curry. But there is simply no other basketball player on earth capable of doing what Curry did in overtime. I'd say no other human, but of course, Curry isn't.
Loading comments...