Watch Stephen Curry rain 3s in Heat defenders’ faces
Open shots, contested shots, it hardly mattered Tuesday night. Stephen Curry was going to get his buckets no matter what.
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
(via the great @DawkInsMTA).
The Golden State Warriors rolled to a 114-97 victory over the Miami Heat on Tuesday night. Point guard Stephen Curry, coming off a pair of underwhelming performances against Utah and OKC, was the big reason why, powering the team with 40 points on 12-of-19 shooting, including 8-of-11 from three.
Since arriving in the Bay Area years ago, Curry has established himself as one of the greatest shooters in NBA history. His blind confidence and quick trigger make him dangerous from anywhere on the court, and against Miami, he showed how lethal he can be even against strong defense.
The Heat simply didn’t have any answers because there’s not much you can do when a guy is hitting contested 25-foot stepback jumpers. Yeah:
Curry finished the game shooting an amazing 8-of-11 on contested shots, per NBA.com. The Heat played strong defense, getting a hand up for most of his shots, but the Warriors point guard just wasn’t going to be stopped on this night.
His shot chart looks like an NBA stathead’s dream scenario:
But this chart doesn’t reveal the difficulty of most shots Curry hit. Unlike many big shooting performances that result from efficient, open looks in the corners, most of the point guard’s baskets came around the top of the arc and the wings. Here’s his seventh three, which came in transition before the defense even had a chance to set itself:
Whether it was Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole, Shabazz Napier or some combination of Heat defenders trying to crack Curry out of his groove -- nope, no dice. His ability to pop out of a low dribble and fire a 24-foot bomb is unparalleled, unstoppable and borderline unbelievable.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Curry go off before -- who can forget that night at Madison Square Garden, after all -- but it’s still a sight to behold every time. The point guard even hit a three after the ball found him on a busted play, picking it up and shooting it in one motion:
At a certain point, you feel bad for the Heat defense, which isn’t even doing much wrong. Curry is that guy who hits 10 straight beer pong cups before you can take a turn. Sometimes, it’s not even fair.
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