It didn’t take long for Stephen Curry to display a truly mind blowing performance to set himself apart from the rest of the league, scoring 53 points as the Golden State Warriors blow out the New Orleans Pelicans for the second time in four days, beating them 134-120.
The Pelicans need to go and complain to whoever put the NBA schedule together. Getting the Warriors twice in one week? A team needs to recover from just one. The Warriors don’t seem to be bored by playing against the same rival once again, and not even the absence of Andrew Bogut made them take it down a notch. It was mostly Curry the best kind of basketball he can possibly play, but when this team is clicking, it’s beyond scary, obviously in a basketball kind of sense.
Curry made easy shots, made difficult shots and made impossible shots. Bottom line? He couldn’t stop scoring. He nailed 8 three-pointers, finishing with 17-of-27 from the field and was one point shy of his career high, which actually came on a losing night in New York. New York, New Orleans, what’s the big difference, right? Curry doesn’t care. He simply plays on a whole other plain of basketball excellence at the moment, as if to prove that the whole MVP debate from last season doesn’t matter. He’s the best basketball player in the league.
Curry wasn’t the only one doing great in the obliteration of the Pelicans, as the Warriors improved to 3-0 this season. Draymond Green scored 21 points, Klay Thompson finished with 19 and Harrison Barnes had 11. The Warriors made their big push in the third quarter, outscoring the Pelicans 41-26. Curry alone scored 28 points in that quarter. You see? Up until half time it was a close game. But Curry has this special extra gear of shooting that no one in the NBA has.
So here are his numbers three games into the season: 39.3 points per game, 58.8% from the field, 48.6% from three, 5.7 rebounds, 7.3 assists. Not bad. It doesn’t really mean anything about whether or not Harden deserved the MVP more than him a few months ago. It’s only a reminder of where each of them are right now. Curry is on a team and within a system that’s enabling him to go all out on scoring sprees like this and seem as unselfish as ever.
And as for the Pelicans? Well, they need to get over this Warriors hump and hope the new regime with Alvin Gentry starts producing results. Being patient with progress is a good thing, but for a team that fired a head coach after he got them into the playoffs, losing three games in a row to open the season isn’t the most welcome of outcomes. They still need Tyreke Evans to come back, but more than anything they need a win, be it via Anthony Davis providing some insane like scoring night or simply this team figuring out what their “offensive genius” of a head coach wants from them.