Vintage Steph Curry takes down the Clippers  

(News4usonline) – Steph Curry is too good. It’s that simple. He’s a four-time NBA champion. He’s a gold-medal winning Olympian. He’s also an elder statesman for the Golden State Warriors, a team torn away from its championship days to a franchise teetering on losing relevancy. 

But as long as Curry is suited and booted, the Warriors can knock off any team on any given day. For the Los Angeles Clippers, that day came on April 15. There are plenty of reasons to discuss why the Clippers will now be watching the postseason from home. 

Curry gave them 35 reasons. 

With the season on the line for both teams, Curry went unleashed when it counted and the Clippers paid for it. Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue was none too happy about the end result. 

“Pissed off,” Lue said. “We had a game in our hands, some silly plays, not doing the right thing execution wise. To be up 13 points within 10 minutes of the game, we got to finish that game. So, I am disappointed in that.”

Curry couldn’t muster a pulse in the first half of the Warrior’s come-from-behind 126-121 win against the Clippers. In the first two quarters of play, Curry scored a grand total of eight points. The Clippers went into the half leading Golden State by eight points. 

The Clippers managed to increase that advantage to 13 points early in the fourth quarter. By that time, Curry was getting busy doing what Steph Curry does best, and that’s shoot the lights out of the basketball. 

Even though the Clippers were massaging their lead over the Warriors, Curry was putting in work, scoring 16 points in the third period. The chef was just starting to cook. With Curry getting hot, the rest of the Golden State team followed suit. 

The Warriors outscored the Clippers 43-32 in the final quarter, shooting a blistering 75 percent from the field. By the way, Curry threw in 11 of his game-high 35 points in the period to seal Golden State’s unlikely and spectacular comeback. 

“I’m just having fun,” Curry said. “I think the muscle memory and the reps and the work that you put in your entire life kind of comes out at the right times. I always talk about earning and deserving the confidence that you play with because of the work that you put in and not being afraid of failure and missed shots or bad turnovers, whatever it is, you just keep going and then the shot goes in and there’s a rhythm to it.” 

There is a reason why Curry is considered the best shooting guard in the history of the NBA. The man is a walking symphony with a basketball. 

The Clippers know too well how good Curry is. After all, the Clippers and Golden State Warriors, the team that Curry has played for during the entirety of his NBA career, play in the same Pacific Division. 

Despite all of this familiarity with Curry, the Clippers knew what was coming in the second half of their NBA Play-In Tournament game against the Warriors. And they could not stop it. 

Golden State head coach Steve Kerr is not the least surprised by what he saw from Curry and his will to compete. 

“Everyone out there who thought Steph should have taken the rest of the year off,” Kerr said in postgame comments. “This is what he does; this is who he is. If he can compete, he is going to compete, and it was incredible to watch.”

The good thing to say about the season that the Clippers had was that they came back from the depths of NBA purgatory to becoming a team playing above .500. The Clippers overcame a lot of this season.

The usual suspects of dysfunction, seeing a future Hall of Fame player get dismissed from the ballclub, and yet, watching another all-time great get traded away for younger prospects. 

The Clippers overcame all of that, but couldn’t stop the second-half scoring avalanche of the Warriors. The Clippers lost because their resident superstar, Kawhi Leonard, couldn’t score more than two points in the fourth quarter. Those two points came at the 16.9 seconds mark left in the game. 

“They had a great game plan, being physical on game, making sure I don’t get no catch and shoot shots. Draymond [Green], hall of fame defender, so yeah, it was hard to even get a shot,” Leonard said. 

As bad as this game ended for the Clippers, the scoring flurry in which the Warriors ended the contest brought back memories for Kerr.

“I’ve been watching them for 12 years; there is a reason we have four championships, and it’s competitiveness. The heart, the will. And, it’s been such a tough year,” Kerr remarked. 

“But to show what they’re made of, what we’re made of, and there were a lot of guys who came through. So, obviously, the spotlight is on them because of everything they’ve accomplished. But I just told them it was, with all the wins we’ve ever had here, a lot of them, with a lot more at stake; this is right up there,” he added.