Steph Curry, Warriors show Spurs, NBA they still can climb the tallest mountains originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN ANTONIO – Anything and everything a basketball fan could ever want from two regular-season games in November was cinematic greatness, attuned to Oscar winners on IMAX between the Warriors and San Antonio Spurs in a three-day span.
The superstar highlights. The intensity. The record books being rewritten.
They had it all, including two comeback Warriors wins after beating the Spurs by five points Wednesday night and then outlasting them 109-108 off two Steph Curry free throws with six seconds left that gave him his 48th and 49th points of the game, one game after dropping 46.
While Curry walked to the free-throw line, Victor Wembanyama, who now has witnessed Steph rip his heart out in his home country of France in the Paris Summer Olympics and his NBA home of San Antonio, tried all he could to rile Spurs fans enough to distract him. It didn’t work.
Curry swished his first free throw, walked towards the Spurs crowd and mockingly did similar gestures back at them as he talked his talk.
“I’m aware of everything,” Curry said. “It’s pretty fun. You have to find something to take the nerves out, and for me that’s just embracing the moment, smiling and having a good time.”
A week before the Warriors’ win against the Spurs on Wednesday night, an illness kept Curry out for three straight games, in which his team went 1-2. He returned Tuesday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder but only scored 11 points in 20 minutes in an ugly blowout loss as the cold still lingered. He could have sat out the second night of a back-to-back in San Antonio, but that wasn’t an option after being embarrassed by the defending champions.
The showman showed out in historic fashion. Curry’s 46 points on Wednesday gave him 43 games of 40 or more points after turning 30 years old, putting him one behind Michael Jordan. The 37-year-old then one-upped himself, knowing exactly when he had tied MJ.
Dribbling the ball between his legs and pulling up from 29 feet away, Curry swished a three with six and a half minutes remaining to give him 41 points, cutting the Warriors’ deficit from 10 points to seven.
The player then became the performer. Curry made a ‘2’ and a ‘3’ with his hands across his chest to the crowd running back to the other side of the court. He knew the moment in the heat of the game, and still could be the entertainer everybody comes to see.
“Very aware,” Curry said. “I did it backwards, though. It’s the second time I’ve done that. But yeah, I was aware of it for sure.
“I didn’t know I was one away until last game and then obviously was asked about it, and then when I got over that number – that’s pretty cool, just from an individual accomplishment perspective. To be able to be in that company and longevity is something that I pride myself on. So that was pretty cool.”
He also joined Jordan and LeBron James as the only players aged 37 years or older with back-to-back 40-point games.
And he’s now the oldest player in NBA history to have back-to-back games of at least 46 points.
Curry in a two-game span scored 95 points, made 29 shots, including 14 threes, and went 23 of 24 at the free-throw line.
On the other side was Wembanyama doing out-of-this-world things at 7-foot-7, with a pitbull a foot shorter than him barking up his tree. Draymond Green doesn’t back down. Never has, never will.
“Draymond is always going to battle,” Steve Kerr said. “He’s one of the greatest competitors I’ve ever been around. Obviously, he was getting pretty emotional out there.”
When Wembanyama, on an out-of-bounds play, caught a pass with his left hand and hammered home a dunk on the heads of Green and Jimmy Butler, the Frenchman bumped Green and yelled right in his face. But this is Draymond. Saginaw’s own looked straight up with the top of his head meeting Wembanyama’s chin.
He frustrated him to no end on Wednesday, and the ball didn’t touch Wembanyama’s hands on the final play with Green guarding him.
The fire only grew from there. An irate Kerr poured more gasoline on it shortly after, letting the referees know his expletive-laden feelings for a technical foul.
“That tech right there probably got us going more than anything,” Gary Payton II said. “Steve fights for us. We’ll run through a wall for him. We love to see that fire from him.”
Kerr’s technical foul gave Wembanyama three free throws, including the two from a loose-ball foul on Butler that put him over the edge, giving the Spurs a 10-point lead at the 7:25 mark of the fourth quarter. The Warriors then outscored the Spurs 27-16 the rest of the game.
In a one-minute and eight-second stretch late in the fourth quarter, Payton and Brandin Podziemski made three 3-pointers on three straight Warriors offensive possessions. The Warriors went from trailing 100-95 to leading 101-100. Podziemski assisted Payton’s first three, then blocked a shot from De’Aaron Fox. It was Payton who assisted Podziemski’s three, and a Podziemski defensive rebound led to Payton’s triple that gave Golden State the lead.
Those two were the epitome of clutch after coming through in several ways Wednesday night, too. All small parts of the game that make Podziemski a critical piece shone, and Payton’s lockdown defense on Fox sealed the deal on the final shot of the game.
This baseball series of adjustments and deep intentions brought out the best of both teams, creating a playoff atmosphere just three and a half weeks into the season.
“It did feel like a playoff game, especially tonight,” Kerr said. “The other night, it was a little different. A little looser, a little freer. Tonight felt more like the physicality of the playoffs.”
Some might say the Warriors are the past. They’ll tell you they’re the present, showing the future what it takes to climb the NBA’s mountain. The climb itself can feel as exhausting as ever for the Warriors. The extra gear to get them to the top is still there.
The greatness. The drama. The passion. These games had it all, begging for more on an even bigger stage down the road.
Eric Samulski
