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Stephen Curry has heard the criticism. He is conscious his legacy is being questioned, and he is aware of that any dangerous sport will begin once more the reconsideration of his accomplishments. But after scoring a career-high 62 factors for the Golden State Warriors in a 137-122 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday night time, Curry despatched a transparent message to his critics: Keep speaking.
“I like being talked about because there’s expectations,” he stated.
Curry’s career-best efficiency got here in a matchup with one in every of his greatest on-court rivals — Damian Lillard of Portland — and on the heels of a storm of social media criticism by which his legacy as a team-lifting celebrity was known as into query.
“Cue the Jordan meme: ‘I take all that personally,’” Curry stated with amusing, referencing a line by Michael Jordan within the documentary “The Last Dance.”
Curry then defined that the efficiency — he had 31 factors at halftime — got here from a a lot less complicated place than folks is likely to be assuming: “I had an opportunity to assert my will on the game early and create some energy.”
Asserting his will included capturing 18 of 31 from the sector, 8 of 16 from 3-point vary and 18 of 19 from the free-throw line. Curry grew to become the primary participant since Kobe Bryant on Dec. 20, 2005, to attain a minimum of 30 factors in every half of a sport, and he bettered his earlier profession excessive of 54 factors, which was set in a street loss to the Knicks in 2013.
His 62 factors additionally had been essentially the most by any participant this season and made him solely the fifth participant in franchise historical past to attain 60 or extra factors, a feat final completed by Klay Thompson, who had 60 in 29 minutes throughout a blowout win over the Indiana Pacers in 2016. Rick Barry, Joe Fulks, Thompson and Curry have one 60-point sport apiece for the Warriors, whereas Wilt Chamberlain had 27.
“He came out looking like a man on a mission,” Draymond Green stated of Curry, who scored 21 factors within the first quarter.
Thompson welcomed Curry to the 60-point membership with a tweet, and Curry’s youthful brother, Seth, who performs for the Philadelphia 76ers, took the chance to poke enjoyable at Stephen’s critics, who appear to show almost each sport right into a referendum on his legacy.
Curry stated that his brother’s tweet was the very best one he’d seen to date and that criticism was simply part of being a celebrity.
“I don’t get frazzled too easily, and I’m very confident in who I am as a person and as a basketball player,” he stated. “There’s not going to be anything you can say about me or to me that’s going to affect that. At the end of the day, that’s how I got here.”
While Curry has performed nicely early this season, averaging 32.3 factors and 6.2 assists by means of six video games, there isn’t a query that the Warriors are a far cry from the juggernaut as soon as led by Curry, Thompson, Green and Kevin Durant. Golden State opened the season with blowout losses to Durant’s Nets and the Milwaukee Bucks, and seemed inept in a loss to Portland on Friday. While their poor play has come largely from newcomers like Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre, a heavy share of the blame has landed squarely on the shoulders of Curry, the Warriors’ finest participant. His most persistent critics have questioned why a two-time winner of the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award can’t elevate a lesser workforce to relevance in the way in which LeBron James has finished.
Green, who lately returned from an damage, rejected that premise.
“Everybody is always going to try to find a reason to nitpick something Steph does, whether it’s that you haven’t won a finals M.V.P. or you haven’t carried a team,” Green stated. “If I’m not mistaken, he carried the 2015 team.
“To be honest, he’s carried every team, because he’s been the leader of the group since I’ve been here.”
Many of Curry’s youthful teammates weren’t with Golden State throughout the championship years. They had been left struggling to explain such a dominant efficiency.
James Wiseman, the workforce’s rookie heart, in contrast it to a online game. “It reminds me of 2K,” he stated, “because I used to play with Steph all the time, and I used to drop like 60. So just like actually watching in person, that was phenomenal.”
Oubre, a veteran wing acquired throughout the low season to assist fill in for the injured Thompson, introduced the angle of getting been one in every of Curry’s opponents, saying, “I was just happy to be on the same side as him tonight because I know it stunk for the other team.”
Curry declined to foretell if big-scoring video games would grow to be a daily prevalence. But he objected to a reporter’s saying he couldn’t rating 62 factors each sport, playfully responding, “Hey, why not?”
And Coach Steve Kerr, who stated he had lifted Curry within the sport’s remaining minute “so the 42 people in the stands could give him a standing ovation,” stated he was perplexed by anybody who would criticize Curry within the first place.
“I’m not playing dumb: Does he really take criticism?” Kerr stated. “I’ll check out Twitter later. I hope they are saying something good about him tonight.”
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