Throughout the NBA play-offs, The National's resident NBA dudes Jonathan Raymond and Kevin Jeffers will be breaking down the key talking points of the night before, plus looking around the scope of the league. Here are our NBA Play-off takeaways.
Monday’s scores
• Miami Heat 94, Toronto Raptors 87 OT (Series tied 2-2)
• Golden State Warriors 132, Portland Trail Blazers 125 OT (Warriors lead 3-1)
• Related: 2016 NBA play-offs analysis, reaction and overview
‘That was crazy’
The greats, the truly greats, all seem to have a signature play-off game which can be recalled simply by when and against whom it happened.
Michael Jordan had Jazz Game 6. Kobe Bryant had Pacers Game 4. LeBron James had Pistons Game 5.
Now Stephen Curry has Blazers Game 4.
Before Monday night, for 175 consecutive games Curry had hit a three-point shot. It sounds pedestrian on the surface – really, one three? Hardly seems a standard by which to measure Steph Curry. But in its simplicity it speaks to the MVP’s unrelenting excellence, his claim on the three-point shot and his use of it to become his sport’s best player over the course of the last 18 or so months. Going back to about November 11, 2014, the last time he went an entire game without a made three-pointer.
It looked like Game 4 might mark the end of that streak. Curry was an icy-cold 0-for-9 well into the fourth quarter. Back after missing four games and about two weeks of action, for most of the game he looked like, well, someone trying to play like Stephen Curry, but without any of the impossible skills that make Stephen Curry.
He was still playing his ridiculous style, basically. Just without the touch to really make it work. The catch-and-fire from way outside (which he airballed). The pull-up around a screen (which he bricked).
Missing the unprecedented feel that keeps his clockwork shot ticking, he nonetheless kept letting it fly. He had to. What else was he supposed to do?
And then, finally, with the same breezy confidence of the nine preceding misses (and the countless preceding makes before them) he heaved up a lean-back three from 25 feet with a tidy little swish to signal that Curry was back.
"It took a while to find a groove," he said, "but I finally found it."
He steadily regained his rhythm as time wound down, though he missed a game-winning attempt as the teams went to overtime.
What happened next though was astonishing, instantly one of the great play-off basketball moments.
He got started with a short bank push-shot. Then, his team down three and with 3:30 to go, he ran a clever fake-give-and-go with Festus Ezeli to drain a three at the top of the key. Tie ball game.
Down two again, he boxed out Mason Plumlee, eight inches his taller, for an offensive rebound and a put-back to draw the Warriors back even. Then he finished off a fast-break with a lay-up to put Golden State up two.
Then he let loose one of those practically insulting 30-foot threes of his, the kind that makes no sense to ever pull up and chuck unless you happen to be Stephen Curry. He drained it, 123-118.
And then, one Harrison Barnes jumper later, the coup de grace. He dribbles upcourt, guarded by Damian Lillard, he goes around a screen and gets Al-Farouq Aminu on the switch. He crosses him over once, goes behind his back, dribbles once more, steps back, fires, nails it.
In less time than it takes to type it all out, he makes it 128-120. It’s over.
In four minutes, he scored 17 points. It was an NBA overtime record – any overtime, ever.
Some people have questioned Curry’s value to the Warriors, his MVP worthiness, by pointing to his team’s relative success in his absence. Golden State are still pretty good, with or without Stephen Curry, the argument goes.
But for the first 192 minutes of this second round series, mostly sans Curry and entirely sans at-his-best Curry, the Warriors were only just pretty good. You might pick them to beat a team like Portland in six or seven games. You probably wouldn’t pick them to beat the Thunder or Spurs.
And then for the last five minutes of Game 4, they were the 73-win, greatest-team-of-all-time Warriors. A team you wouldn’t pick to lose to anyone.
Those Warriors are borne out of Curry having skills no one else in his sport has ever possessed. Out of Curry being able to push them to a level that simply can’t be reached by their competitors.
Even for Curry, Game 4 might have been a new level. The kind of unreal display that produces disbelief in the moment and will inspire incredulity long after, living on in basketball lore.
“That was crazy,” was all Warriors coach Steve Kerr could muster on it afterward.
It was absurd. It was ridiculous. It was stupefying.
It was crazy.
It was so, so crazy.
Tuesday’s schedule
Oklahoma City Thunder at San Antonio Spurs, 4am Wednesday UAE time
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