Steph Curry is Reaching Video Game Status
13 Nov, 2015
Sam Mitchell just shrugged his shoulders watching guard Stephen Curry make shot after shot. It seemed as though he never missed.
Curry scored 46 points to lead the Golden State Warriors to a 129-116 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center.
Mitchell, Minnesota’s interim head coach, said his team played good defense. They contested shots. They put pressure on Curry.
“You commit so much effort to try and slow Steph Curry down and he still scores (46) points,” Mitchell said. “You sit there and wonder, if you don’t do those things and you just try to play him conventionally, he might get 60.”
It was the fourth time this season Curry scored at least 20 points in a single quarter and his third 40-point game. He shot 15-for-25 on the night, including 8-for-13 from 3-point range.
“He was decent tonight. He was OK,” Warriors interim coach Luke Walton said with a smile.
“He’s just so dangerous. At any time, he can go on a 6-0, 8-0 run just off of transition and getting a steal and putting it up for three. He’s always in attack mode.”
At 10-0, Golden State is off to the best start in franchise history. The 1960-61 Warriors opened 9-0.
“Definitely a good start to the season, best start we could have hopes for,” Curry said. “(We) just want to keep it going. We can still play better.”
Andrew Wiggins led Minnesota with 19 points, Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds, and reserve forward Shabazz Muhammad added 16 points in 19 minutes.
The Timberwolves, who are 4-0 on the road this season, dropped to 0-4 at home.
Curry had 21 points after the first quarter and 25 at the half as the Warriors looked to run away with the game early.
The Warriors scored the game’s first 10 points, including six by Curry. He had 12 points and lifted the Warriors to a 22-10 lead before Minnesota called timeout less than halfway through the quarter.
Curry finished the first quarter 6-for-9 from the floor, including 4-for-5 from beyond the arc, as the Warriors led by 40-27 after the period.
With last season’s MVP on the bench, Minnesota pulled as close as 48-42 midway through the second but trailed 75-63 at the half. The 75 points scored by Golden State are the most by any team in a half this season.
With Minnesota getting back into the game, Curry entered and scored 10 more in the third, including back-to-back threes as Golden State pushed their lead to its largest of the night at 21 points.
However, the Wolves closed the quarter on an 11-0 run, capped by guard Kevin Martin’s 18-foot jumper at the buzzer to pull within 97-87.
“I was hoping he was going to be done,” Walton said. “He played some big minutes last night but obviously it was going to depend on how the game went. That’s a good team and they fought back and got back into it.”
Martin started the fourth with a 3-pointer to get Minnesota back within single digits, and the Wolves clawed as close as 104-99 before the Warriors pulled away late.
“To get down a deficit like we did, to roar back and be so close,” Towns said, “that’s something, like I’ve said before, we just continue to fight. When the team fights, anything is possible.”
All five Warriors starters finished in double figures. Forward Draymond Green had 23 points to go with 12 assists and eight rebounds.
“We got some stops and crawled our way back into it,” Mitchell said. “Then when you have Klay Thompson and (Andre) Iguodala and Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green, and all those guys, they spread the floor really well.
“They’re just a very tough basketball team to defend because of all those shooters. You can’t leave anybody open.”
Reuters
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