Stephen Curry hopes his All-Star game brilliance will translate to regular-season success when his Golden State Warriors open the second half of the season Thursday night on the road against the Portland Trail Blazers.
Curry’s eighth All-Star appearance was not only his best but one of the most electrifying of all time when he buried an NBA-record 16 3-pointers in a 50-point performance.
The 16 threes were the most by an NBA player in any game, surpassing teammate Klay Thompson’s 14 against the Chicago Bulls in a regular-season contest in 2018.
The 50 points were the second-most in All-Star game history, two shy of Anthony Davis’ 52 in 2017.
Curry broke the NBA all-time record for career 3-pointers earlier in the season, but nonetheless the 16-for-27 barrage against his fellow All-Stars came out of nowhere.
After all, the 33-year-old had finished the first half in a long-distance shooting slump, having gone 1 for 7 in a 117-116 home loss to the Denver Nuggets in the pre-break finale, two games after having had even less success (1 for 8) against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Since sinking 6 of 17 triples in a 22-point performance in Golden State’s 104-94 win over Portland on Dec. 8 in their most recent head-to-head, Curry has shot just 34.7 percent from long range over his last 30 games, dropping his season percentage to a career-low 37.9 percent (not counting 24.5 percent in a 2020 season cut short by injury).
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said his team, which has lost four of its past five games, has bigger concerns than worrying about Curry’s 3-point shooting.
Golden State was last seen getting overpowered by Denver’s Nikola Jokic (35 points, 17 rebounds) to cap a five-game stretch in which they were continually bullied by opposing big men and outrebounded on average by 8.8 per night.
Some expected the Warriors to search for answers in the buyout market leading into the second half, but Kerr said he hopes things change if/when James Wiseman (knee) and Draymond Green (back) return from injuries.
“I really don’t think it’s a matter of replacing Draymond or James with a big,” Kerr said. “It’s about us finding our energy and our collective will defensively and then getting those guys back hopefully soon.”
Portland will be without big man Jusuf Nurkic, who is out at least four weeks with plantar fasciitis in his left foot. He had a run of seven straight double-doubles come to an end in the Blazers’ final game before the break, a 123-119 win at Memphis in which he contributed 32 points.
Interestingly, this Warriors-Blazers duel will be the 10th in the last 18 in which either Curry or Damian Lillard has been unable to play. Lillard will miss this meeting — as he did on Dec. 8 — following abdominal surgery.
Anfernee Simons has more than taken up the slack during Portland’s four-game winning streak — the third longest among NBA teams coming out of the break. He scored 29, 30, 31 and 31 points in the spree, shooting 51.1 percent overall and 46.9 percent on 3-pointers.
“I didn’t expect this,” Simons said over the break. “Sadly, all of the injuries (including Lillard) happened, and trades (especially CJ McCollum to New Orleans) happened. It just kind of elevated me.”
