SAN FRANCISCO — Ooops, he did it again.
Steph Curry, universally regarded as the best shooter the NBA has ever seen, added to his lore on Tuesday when he dropped 50 points on the visiting Atlanta Hawks en route to Golden State Warriors’ 127-113 victory at the Chase Center.
Curry flaunted his shooting prowess with a 14 of 28 clip from the field goal and 9 of 19 from 3-point range. He also swished all 13 of his free throws/
Besides grabbing seven rebounds and coming up with three steals. Curry, a two-time MVP and 7-time All-Star, also finished with 10 assists.
It’s that part of his arsenal, the genoristy and willingness to spread the ball that impressed head coach Steve Kerr the most.
“He’s a brilliant passer out of the double teams. He’s seen every defense that there is. One of the best qualities is getting the ball out of those traps and creating mismatches on the backend of a play,” Kerr told reportersat his postgame press conference.
Trae Young exploded for 21 first half points as Atlanta raced to a 65-61 lead over the team with the league’s best record. But the Warriors punched back with a crippling 41-20 third quarter run that created distance heading into the fourth quarter.
During that span, Golden State also threw the defensive gauntlet on Young, who has held to just seven points the rest of the way.
“We hit him with a box and one. As soon as he got off of it I wouldn’t let him catch it. So we kind of limited him in the second half and made other people score,” said Warriors guard Gary Payton II of his team’s ploy in slowing down one of the NBA’s most elusive and creative point guards.
Jordan Poole, Andrew Wiggins and Juan Toscano-Anderson combined for 40 points and eight rebounds to help Golden State rise to a 9-1 card.
It was another diappointing loss for the 4-7 Hawks, who fell despite shooting 47.8 percent from the field (44 of 92) and 40.9 percent from 3 (18 of 44). John Collins had 19 points on a losing effort while Bogdan Bogdanovic and Kevin Huerter accounted for 17 and 11 points, respectively.
