The best shooter ever could have had his biggest second ever.
Stephen Curry has 4 NBA titles, a few MVPs and the league’s all-time 3-point document. His capturing modified not simply the Warriors and the NBA, however the recreation of basketball the world over.
However by no means in his surefire Corridor of Fame profession has he had a golden second like this.
The one spot in Curry’s overflowing trophy case nonetheless naked was for an Olympic gold medal. And he stuffed it Saturday, the identical means he stuffed up the basket when Workforce USA wanted him in a 98-87 remaining victory over host France.
“It wasn’t simple, however rattling, I’m excited,” Curry stated. “That is every little thing that I wished it to be and extra, so I’m excited.”
Curry poured in 24 factors, 5 assists and eight 3-pointers. And it wasn’t simply what Curry did, however how he did it. And when.
After watching Workforce USA get wobbly and seeing their double-digit lead shrivel to simply 82-79 with underneath three minutes left, the U.S. rode Curry’s again.
Or extra precisely, they rode his red-hot hand.
Curry scored a dozen factors within the remaining 2:48 of the sport, all on 3-pointers.
“That was an unbelievable second. I’ve been blessed to play basketball at a excessive degree for a really very long time. I don’t know, this ranks very, very excessive when it comes to the joy and the sense of aid attending to the end line,” Curry stated in an on-court TV interview after the victory.
“It’s particular. Two years in the past once we received our final championship, I knew that this was going to be on the horizon, and one thing that I used to be excited to go after. Something you join, any mission that you just tackle, you give every little thing you could have. … We missed the playoffs, so I’ve been getting ready for a very long time, however these final 5 weeks along with this group has been nothing however ‘one, two, three, gold.’ That’s all we’ve been saying. So for us to lastly accomplish that, for me to get the gold medal, is insane, and I thank God for the chance to expertise it.”
Curry’s heat-check 3-pointers — daggers from the brand — have modified the sport and impressed a technology of gamers to emulate him. However the authentic was on show Saturday in Paris, and he was on hearth.
After mustering simply 29 factors on 5 of 20 capturing from deep by way of Workforce USA’s first 4 video games, Curry erupted for 60 on 17 of 26 the final two.
It was Curry’s game-high 36 factors that overturned a 17-point deficit within the semifinal win over three-time MVP Nikola Jokic. Saturday towards the way forward for the game, Victor Wembanyama, he pulled off an encore.
2024 PARIS OLYMPICS
When Wembanyama acquired the hosts inside 82-79, Curry answered again with a 3-pointer simply 10 seconds later. Then he drained one other with 1:53 to play, and one other, and at last a high-arcing miracle shot over a Wembanyama double-team with 35 seconds left.
That was the exclamation level on the win. And after it was over, Curry was on the rostrum conducting the American pockets of followers in chants of “USA! USA!” the identical means he’d carried out Workforce USA to gold.
“It’s proper up there with all the biggest video games of his profession,” Workforce USA coach Steve Kerr stated in a TV interview. And after successful 4 NBA titles with Curry in Golden State, Kerr would know.
“The shotmaking was simply unbelievable,” he stated. “However underneath the circumstances — you understand, on the highway in Paris towards France for a gold medal — that is storybook stuff. However that’s what Steph does. He likes to be in storybooks.”
Curry wasn’t simply on this one. He wrote the golden ending for it.
