NBA Hooper of the Week 04.19-04.26
Last week, I was so focused on the unbelievable sustainability of the New York Knicks that I completely overlooked what was going on over in The Bay. Won’t make that mistake again.
After being named the NBA’s Player of the Week for his mind boggling stretch it only seemed right to show Stephen Curry the just due that he deserves.
The man is averaging career-highs in points (31.2) and rebounds (5.6). His splits are out of this world as he is shooting 48.9% from the floor on a career-high 20.9 attempt and 42.5% from three on a career-high 12 attempts. He is even going crazy from the free throw line, shooting 92.4% on a career-high six attempts.
Across the NBA media landscape, analysts and fans alike have been debating on whether Curry’s 33-year-old season is arguably his best season thus far (even in comparison to his unanimous MVP season back in 2015-16). With a stat line like his, Curry is hands down the talk of the town in the NBA world.
That is why I undoubtedly am naming Stephen Curry the sole and unanimous Hooper of the Week. Let’s get into it!
First off, we have the matchup against Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers. This is the definition of a “Curry Game,” as he literally carried the Dubs to victory as Golden State notched the win 107-96. Curry dropped 49 points along with five assists and three rebounds. The insane thing about this stat line had to be the shooting splits – 14-of-28 shooting from the floor, 11-of-12 from the free throw line, and the most jarring was that he went 10-of-17 from beyond the arc. To put that in perspective, he nearly matched the entire Sixers team in three-point shooting (76ers were 12-of-32 from three as a team).
Then to even further emphasize just how much Curry carried, we have to look at the supporting cast. Outside of Curry’s 49 points, the rest of Golden State’s starting lineup combined for 31 points on the night. Things got so out of hand in regard to Curry’s shooting that Philly fans actually chanted “MVP” while he was at the free throw line. This was in spite of the fact that their team had a Top-3 candidate in Embiid who was on his way to dropping a near triple-double with 28 points, 13 rebounds, and eight assists.
The man literally snatched the house that Embiid built away from him. Not only by attracting the praise of the home team Philly fans, but also because it was his team that came out with the dub.
Moving onto the next game, Curry and the Golden State Warriors engaged in a Battle of the 10th seeds by facing off with the Washington Wizards. Unfortunately for Warriors fans, Golden State would fall 114-118 in this one and Curry did not have the best game. On the night he only had 18 points along with eight assists and seven rebounds on 7-of-25 shooting from the floor and 2-of-14 shooting from three. This performance would snap his 11-game streak of 30+ point games and would give the Dubs their only loss of the week.
For the Warriors, this game was more about the bench as Kelly Oubre and Jordan Poole combined for 46 points while knocking down eight triples. For Washington, Bradley Beal is lurking behind Curry in the scoring title race averaging 31.1 points a game. In this one, he continued to push Steph for first place as he led all scorers with 29 points along with ten rebounds. Russell Westbrook also did Russell Westbrook things with yet another triple-double notching 14 points, ten assists, and a whopping 20 boards.
For Curry this would only be a minor setback for a major comeback.
Closing out the week, the Warriors took on the MVP front runner Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets. This would be the first game that Golden State welcomed fans back into the stadium and these guys did not disappoint. In route to a 118-97 blowout, Curry led the way with 32 points, eight rebounds, and three assists on 11-of-18 shooting from the floor, 4-of-9 shooting from three, and 6-of-6 from the charity strike. The Dubs also got 38 points off the bench as Oubre and Poole combined for 38 points. Even Draymond Green chipped in with a weird double-double as he grabbed 12 boards and dished out 19 assists tying his career-high.
On the other side, Nikola Jokic had a solid game with 19 points, six rebounds, and six assists. The big issue for Jokic in this one was that his shot was not falling. 7-of-16 from the floor is okay but he goose egged from beyond the arc going 0-of-3. It would be up to Michael Porter Jr. to pick up the slack, leading the team with 26 points. Sadly for the Nuggets, it was all Chef Curry in this one as they never stood a chance.
So, in just this week alone, Curry added yet another near-50 burger game to his resume. He won 2-out-of-3 games against legitimate NBA title contenders. And this all happened in the process of taking down two of the Top-3 MVP candidates. Now he has the Golden State Warriors sitting at 30-30 in the Western Conference as they are just a game out 8th place. The best part for Warriors fans is that in their next ten games they have the Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves, Houston Rockets, and the Oklahoma City Thunder twice. Sounds like a great opportunity to put a solid run together in these final couple weeks of the regular season before playoff basketball is underway.
Did somebody say Stephen Curry for MVP? With the season slowly waning, he surely is playing himself into position as a strong favorite heading into this final stretch of the season.
